Abandoned
by technicorn
Summary: The story takes place some months after the last episode of Chobits, and is more based on the anime ending than the manga. And I can not promise that any of the original characters will make an appearance in this fic, but who knows? But if you want to know, what having 'true' emotions might do to some persocoms, read on...
1. Chapter 1 - Finding shelter

Abandoned

Chapter 1 – Finding shelter

"No, please no, " she screamed ", don't..."

beep, beep, Beep, BEEP!

A charging sign light up in her periphery view, telling her she was up at 80% of energy level, but there were also many warning signs, telling her her left arm was damaged and some part of her skin didn't respond to the sunlight shinning down on her exposed torso to recharge her.

Looking to her left underarm, she could see the long cleft, running nearly all the way from her left wrist to the pit of her elbow, with some cables cut down so deeply, that even the copper, supposed to distribute energy to her hand, was exposed to free air. Moving her left hand, some of the cables giving of small blue arcs of lightning when they touched each other, which in turn makes even more warning signs pop up in her eyes perimeter and her energy level drop down by some percent. If that wasn't enough, it sends jolts of pain through her lower arm, at least what was the equivalent feeling of pain would be for a persocom.

'I have to do something about it,' she thought 'but I can not go back to were humans live, I can not, they would simply taking me and...' her thoughts trailed of.

She tried to remember how she got here, but as much as she attempts to do so, her mind came up blank. There were also some other things that confuses her.

Invoking her memory diagnostics, it read that some of her hard disc was cluttered with unreadable data, at least it just came up as garbage when she tried to access it.

Her wireless transmitter also acted kind of strange, when she tried to connect to the internet it simply wouldn't let her, although her diagnostics showed it as fully functional. It's as if she would not let her presence be known to the world, as if she's been hiding from the world.

"Hiding from what?" she thought out loud.

To make matters worse, the sunshine gave way to some very dark clouds coming from the north "If my GPS is still working correctly" she mumbled to herself "as beaten up as I am by... by..." yeah, what had happened to her to leave her here in the wild, her clothes only rags with her blouse completely missing, leaving her upper body exposed to any gaze. Not that there was anybody around for miles, being in the middle of a huge forest, lying on the ground of a clearing that she stumbled on last night, seeing that her energy level has dropped down to only 10%, hoping the next day would be sunny enough to recharge her.

Rising to her feet, she took a look around, last night being so dark, even her enhanced persocom visions couldn't make out more than what was some feet away from her. Not seeing anyone or hearing anything beside the usual sounds in a forest, that was the rustle of leaves or the chirp of a bird, the thought she was just in the middle of nowhere, than she shook her head, sanding some dark brown curled hair to fly around her head 'I am not 'nowhere', I am not lost, as long as my GPS is working I can not get lost' But if that's so, why does she feels like she's lost.

There it was again, this word 'feel', that hounded her the last days, as this time gap was all she could remember. Looking it up in the dictionary that is installed in her wasn't of any help. Of course the knew what 'To feel something' meant, being able to feel the heat of the sunshine or even more the heat of a candle flame or an oven, that was simply necessary for a persocom to not get damaged, she could also feel the cold of the rain on her skin. Down to the extend of feeling 'pain' when her skin was breaking, like it had on her left arm.

But this feeling of being 'lost' wasn't caused by any external input to her electric nerve system, It seems to come out of nowhere. 'No, it's more like it comes from my … heart?!' shot a puzzling thought through her mind, making her brown eyes glazing over with some white streaks, her CPU running at top speed, trying to sort out her thoughts, she stands there for some seconds, finally shaking her head again to bring herself out of the musing.

'The nearest to a human heart that I have in my body are those pumps greasing my joints or pumping fluids to my eyes to wash them clean, but there is simply no heart, where it would be in a humans body'

With that running through her mind, she looked down at herself, seeing her exposed breasts.

'I am a persocom, I should not bother me with thoughts about being exposed like this, aside from my programming telling me, it is inappropriate to not wear cloths around humans.'

But why was she 'feeling' so vulnerable. It even make her cringe, thinking that someone could see her like that.

There it was again, this word that seems to send her into a data processing frenzy, but before it could use up all her processing power, she took a huge amount of willpower to shove it to the back of her thinking.

'There are more urgent things to worry about. This clouds look like they about to drop down solid. And if that much water sips through the crack in my arm and into my system...'

As if her thoughts had provoked it, first splashes of thick drops were hammering down on her. She pressed her injured arm to her side, trying to cover it as best as she could with her other arm, to prevent the water to run into the slashed

underarm.

She started to run south, away from the clouds chasing her, and she could already feel small stings of pain from the water running down her left arm and into the wound, leading to short circuits and draining her energy cell, the power gauge was already dropped down to 60%.

'If I don't find shelter fast, I run out of energy within minutes, than I would drop hear and now. And with that rainstorm it would surely flood my whole system, not even the brightest sunshine will ever recharge me, all that internal damage aside, it would be like dying.'

'But how can she die, if she wasn't alive in the first place?!'

"No time to dwell about it, I'm not willing to give up that easily" she snarls.

With that, she looked up her GPS map, seeing a road running by the forest in the direction she was heading. Going near any humans housing still make her wince, but maybe she could find some shelter in an old unused barn...

Coming out of the forest and stumbling more than running, she find herself on a road that seems to run in both directions toward the horizon with no end. Looking around frantically, she made out something to her right that looks like it was a sort of an abandoned farm, at least there were no lights visible, and the dark clouds drowning the sunlight, it looks just as a big black silhouette the form of a stable sitting aside of a small mansion. It was not more than half a mile away, but her power now only reading 5%, she wasn't even sure she could make it that fare, in spite of that, she starts running as fast as she could, the rain still pouring down on her.

Crossing the street and racing down the branch from the main road, she still couldn't see any signs of life in the villa, what made her feel somehow relieved, she thought it would be better to head for the stables, even if this farm would be deserted, she felt uneasy breaking into the house.

Turning towards the barn, she rushed up to the side entrance, only to find it locked by a shackle, seeing her power going down to 2%, she looked around in a haze, barely making out a dung fork sitting next to he door. Grabbing the fork using it as a crowbar, she breaks off the chain on the door, ripped the door open and stumbles inside.

'This all might not be worth anything, being in this dark room, I will not be able to recharge from the sun, maybe if I keep the door open, there will be a small chance it sips enough in to keep me functional.' was her last thought.

Using the fork to keep the door from being shut by the wind, this was her last conscious moment, before the sank against the wall and slides down to the ground, a swirling sound coming from within her body and her eyes began to change their color from dark brown to pitch black and her lids start to close.

When she entered the room, her system was already in the state of an emergency shutdown, so she doesn't noted the uprising that her noisy entrance hat provoked. There were some heavy stomping and snorting coming from the other side of the huge gloomy room, meaning she wasn't alone in there...


	2. Chapter 2 - Let them talk

Abandoned

Chapter 2 – Let them talk

Maria was driving her old pick up truck down the town main street to the cemetery, a bunch of flowers on the co-driver seat. Although she was concentrating on the traffic, her face had a dreamy but yet sad expression. Pulling into the parking lot and coming to a hold, she grabs the flowers and headed for the entrance of the cemetery. Walking down the long lines of graves, she stopped before one that reads 'Eric Miller'. She bends down to take the nearly dying flowers out of the vase on the grave to replace them with the ones she brought with her, whispering "See daddy, I brought you a bunch of violets, you always loved them, you said, because their color reminded you of me, as my eye color is the same."

Standing there for some minutes, she could hear footsteps on the gravel coming down from the entrance. She didn't bother to look for the source, but when the steps coming closer she could hear some hushed voices saying

"Isn't that the..."

"Oh yes it is..."

"Mr. Miller must have gone out of his mind, to leave all his belongings to tha.."

"Not so loud, " said one of the four older woman "I've been told, they have very good hearing."

"... to her." finished the other woman.

As the group of four woman passing by Maria, she turned around, giving them a small smile, than turned and walked back to her car.

"Maybe she hadn't overheard us" said the woman that was stopped before she could say something rude.

Maria was already out of the cemetery, but could still hear the group chat about her and her daddy, things like "Must have been his age" "She surely wasn't there to do only chores..." and all the things she had heard a hundred times before, but she couldn't care less, some people can't be convinced of the truth even if you slap them right in the face with it.

Shrugging that notion off of her mind, she drove back to the center of the middle sized town, to go to the only persocom and electronic shop a hundred miles around.

Climbing out of the car she walked up to the shops door only limping slightly "Better watch were I put that damned fork next time" she grumbles, when she was greeted by a joyful "Hello, Maria" from behind her back. She turned around to be faced by a woman with a warm smile on her face.

"Haven't seen you around lately Maria."

"Hello Eva, nice to see you, was to busy to do any shopping the last weeks."

"To bad" said Eva "would be nice to have you over for some smalltalk again."

"Sure thing, when the rainy season is over and the horses can graze again, I'll give you a call." smiled Maria.

"Looking forward to it. By the way, was I seeing right, you seem to limp on your right leg Maria, hopefully nothing to serious?!"

"Not really, haven't watched my step and tripped over a fork, banged that damn thing at the wall, now I have not only my leg repaired but also a hole in my stable wall." Maria said with a grin.

"Watch your temper darling, might get you in trouble one day." said Eva, then her smile dropped "I know it's still hard, since your father passed away."

Maria noted, Eva saying father without that unspoken but sometimes audible apostrophes around the word, like some others did when they talk to her about Eric, if they talk to her at all.

"Yes, It was a hard time for me. But friends like you, Tom, Britta and so many other helped me trough that time, when all I ever wanted to do is break down and cry, all of you were there to build me up again. And there also were the horses I had to take care of and look after, after … daddy died" Maria said, the last two words coming out as if she was about to cry.

Eva, a reassuring smile on her face, opened her arms to pull Maria into a big hug. Maria returning the hug mumbling just "Thank you".

"Anytime darling" said Eva

When they parted, Eva walked on the way she was heading before, waving at Maria, who waved back and then turned to the shop ones more to finally enter it.

Tom and Britta, the owners of the shop called it the "The electronic store at the end of the universe" making a pun on some old SciFi story that Maria never got around to read, still find it a funny name.

She did not have to make herself known to he inhabitants of the shop, as there was always this annoying fanfare when the door was opened.

Soon enough, she was greeted by some hushed curses when she first heard a bang and than a sound of what must be the walls of Jericho crumbling. "Damn it!" she heard the voice of Tom coming from the store room, then a female voice from the office "Told you to put that crap away some weeks ago!" "Would have done that, if that wasn't the basic of our business!" With that reply, Tom was turning around the corner of the store room, making all but a friendly face till he saw Maria standing under the door, who was looking somewhat dumbfounded at Tom as his face brightens up.

"Maria" he said "nice to see you again" then turning to the office to shout "Britta, see what the cat brought in."

Maria didn't mind that joke, although it took her a little to get used to this kind of humor at first and asked "So what was that noise back there?"

"Got a stack of 100GBit multifiber 64 channel transmitter from the scrap yard for a bargain." answered Tom.

"Heard of that" said Maria "If I remember right, they were quite popular... around the time when the telephone was invented"

"Touche" smirked Tom.

But when Maria stepped forward, still limping, the smirk on Toms face soon becomes an expression of worry, at that moment Britta came from the office into the salesroom and saw Maria limping towards the counter, she hurried over to Maria, her face also full of concern.

"What have you been up to" she asked "Hopefully not into a fight about something that some silly people still whispering behind your back about..." Britta started, but was stopped by Maria, who gave her a warm smile and waved her hand as to calm her down "Na, I'm over that for a long time."

When Britta and Maria met, they gave each other a big hug and a kiss on the check.

"Good to hear that my dear." said Britta with a huge relief in her voice "But how come you injured your leg?" And Maria retold her story a second time this day, which includes a fork, a wall and some curses Britta had never heard of before. Turning to Tom, who meanwhile was approaching the female couple with a outstretched hand to greet Maria, stopped dead in his tracks when he heard Maria cursing, with a head as bright red as a stop sign on fire.

Taking Maria's hand to shake it he finally got a "Fine to see you're back to your energetic self" out, a slight smile on his face.

Ushering Maria to the back of the sails room, where a persocom diagnostic and repair station stands, Maria sat down on the diagnostic chair. As Maria is wearing a skirt and a pair of sandals and no socks, it was plain to see what caused her to limp, the fork had made its way right through her right ankle.

"Mind to stop and stare and start some diagnostics" said Maria, who had already pushed her jet black hair aside and opened her right ear and held a cable in her hand, pointing at the diagnostic screen.

"Sure" answered Tom, taking the cable and plugged it into the console, all the while Britta was sitting at her left side, giving her a reassuring smile.

As the console sprang to life, Maria's violet eyes ware glazed over by white streaks, and a faint humming could be heard from within her body. All this only took some seconds to complete, after which the console sounds a short beep and the screen read:

' Unit: 032567TC '

' Name: Maria Miller '

' Owner: None '

More lines flying by all in a green text, till the console gave a double beep, stopping at some lines in red:

' Skin damage at sectors RA325 and RA324'

' Internal damage at sectors RA012 and RA023'

Both Britta and Tom gave up a loud sigh of relief.

Maria, who was already out of her diagnostic trance, turned her head to both of them looking inquisitive, asking "So what's the deal?"

"Fortunately nothing serious dear. Only two signal traces are broken and some minor skin damage, We'll patch that up in some minutes. Not even the need to shut your CPU down for that, with the diagnostic terminal, we can suppress any signal from the sensors in your right leg, so you will not feel anything, while we bring your ankle up to as good as new." answered Britta.

"Glad to hear that." said Maria, also looking very relieved that there was no need for her to be shut down, which not steamed from the fact that she was completely helpless when shut down, because she knew that she could trust her life with Tom and Britta, but from her feeling as if she was dying when her system goes into shut down mode.

True to their promise, the whole procedure just took some minutes. Not being faint at heart, all the while Maria was looking curious at what's going on at her right ankle.

When she finally disconnected from the terminal and stood up and taking some steps forward, she really felt as if her ankle was good as new.

"Thank you very much" said Maria, a small smile on her face "What do I owe you two?"

"Nothing" came the answer from Britta and Tom in unison "But we would not mind..." started Tom "...if you bring some of your delicious apple pie with you next time we met." closed Britta.

"If you two are always that cheap, I wouldn't be at all surprised to see a 'For sale' sign in your show window next time I come by."

All three had a good laugh at that.

Maria gave Britta and Tom a big hug and bid them goodby.

When Maria had left, Britta turned to Tom saying "I only wish she would find someone to life with her on that farm of hers"

"But she seemed quite happy being there on her own, and have to take care of her horses will surely take up most of her time anyway" replied Tom.

Britta turning her eyes skywards and said "But even the horses are sleeping at night, and knowing what a hard worker Maria is, I'm sure she makes short work of the chores, and there are many nights when she is all alone in her bed"

"Never thought about..." Tom started, till it dawned in his head what Britta was hinting at and his head turned red again as if to illuminate the whole town.

Meanwhile, Maria was already half way down the way to her farm, her old CD player blasting "Nights in white satin" into her ears, making her think that there a many things better today than it was in the past, but it always appeared to her as if music wasn't on of those things. And her father being a lover of all music before the turn of the millennium surely gave her a very biased view on that topic. All that run through her head, while she was humming along with the line "Gazing at people, some hand in hand. Just what I'm going through they can't understand..." from Moody Blues.

Her humming gave way to a deep sigh "Oh daddy, you've always understand me, I know you loved me even before the incident with that mysterious persocom, that gave all persecoms the ability to truly feel emotions, instead of all the affection just being a calculus"

But in thinking back to the days before the incident, she found that she always had some kind of affection towards her father and towards horses. She remembered many days, when she was just sitting on the fence of the pasture, looking with dreamy eyes at the herd when they grazed, played 'catch me' or standing in pairs grooming each other.

Maybe this persocom didn't gave other persocoms the ability to feel, and it was more like unlocking their ability to do so in full, no longer just being a part of their programming.

To her it always appeared to be the most ill-timed point in her life when that incident happened, because it was just some days, after her father Eric Miller died.

She was kneeling at her fathers grave, when that pulse shut through her, making her stiff as a rock, her eyes turning from violet to just dark pools. Eva, Britta and Tom being with her at that time, letter told her, they nearly freaked out about her behavior, not knowing what was going on, at first thinking that it was because of the loss of her father and her system had totally crashed.

But it got even worse, when the incident was over. Her new ability to have emotions hit her like a hammer to her head, or more, it was like someone ripped her heart out of her chest, holding it up before her eyes still beating and than crushed it to pieces.

All that turmoil of feelings in her heart made her eyes glazed over by so many streaks, they became nearly totally white and her vision blurred. When she thought, this would be the end of her existence, she felt that she was picked up by her friends, all three encircling her with their hugs. At first she could only hear whispering voices, soothing, concerned, crying...

It was then, when her eyes returned to her normal violet color and her vision cleared, that she saw her best friends standing around her, holding her tight, all had tears in their eyes and very sad looks on their faces, when the sobbing in her chest broke free and her vision blurred again, not because her eyes glazed over again, but from the tears gathering in her eyes and rolling down her cheeks. The four of them standing there till the sobbing ebbed away eventually, their eyes still watered, their faces still full of sorrow and pain, but knowing they had each other to get through this hard time.

For several weeks after that day, Eva made her self at home on Maria's farm, knowing how fragile and alone Maria still feels. And she wouldn't leave, despite the fact that Maria tried to convince her that she would do just fine on her own, and that Eva had her own life to lead. Eva was even more destined on staying at Maria's farm, when she heard in the news what happened that dreadfully day at the grave, and Maria now truly was capable of having emotions. Although to Eva it never appeared that Maria was without emotions, always being a loving and caring daughter to her father Eric, a good and caring companion for their horses and a heart warming company to her friends. And Eva never get tired of telling that to Maria and that her father knew she was loving him.

Maria snapped out of her thoughts at seeing she nearly missed the branch to her farm and the day had turned into night, turning the road into a kind of black hole, she pulled a stunt by taking the turn to the branch on two tires, chuckling to herself, about how silly she can be at times, losing some of the tension that her thoughts hat build up in her.

But her chuckles died down the moment the headlights of her truck swept over the side of the stable and revealed to her that the door to the side entrance was wide open.

The tires protested with a squeaking noise as she nearly kicked the break pedal through the bottom of her car, at the same time unlocked her safety belt and opened the driver door, jumping out of the car and dashed to the open door.

"Who ever is in there better has a very good explanation at hand, or if they had done something to the horses..." she thought in a rage "I'll use that god damned fork to shove it spikes first into their..."

Here her dash came to a hold, just as her thoughts did, seeing a dead body caught in the headlights of her car. Taking a step closer she could see, it wasn't a corpse, it was a... persocom.


	3. Chapter 3 - Getting clues

Abandoned

Chapter 03 - Getting clues

Maria looked into the half light that the headlights were sending into the stable, seeing that all stable doors were shut and all horses looking curiously at the woman that made such a stunning entrance, seeing it was Maria, she was greeted by some friendly snorts and whinny.

Seeing that her horses ware save and uninjured, she turned her attention back to the persocom lying at her feet.

Maria stood there dumbfounded, looking at a bare breasted persocom with curly brown hair that was sticking to her face, small blue ears, barely visible through her wild mane and...

Maria pressed her hand to her mouth to muffle her scream, the underarm of that persocom looked like it was nearly cut in half wrist to elbow.

Overcoming her first shock, she knelt down beside the persocom having a better look at the injury, seeing that it really looked serious "Where did you got that from?" she thought out loud. Looking around, the only thing she saw was the fork keeping the door open 'Maybe she injured herself when she broke the chain on the door with that fork?'

But no, it couldn't be, the fork was spiky, she know from first hand, or better, first ankle, but it wasn't sharp enough to give that blow.

'What on earth had happened here?!' Maria thought as she gently touched the uninjured arm. The temperature sensors under her skin telling her, the skin of that mysterious persocom was nearly at the ambient temperature, meaning, she must be her for hours. With a light grip on the shoulder of the persocom before her, she tries to gently wake her up, but to no avail.

'Maybe I should take her inside to recharge her, but then that blow on her arm could lead to her system being overloaded, more so if she was outside when that cloudburst set in.'

Matters were take out of her hand when she gently tugged on the persocom's shoulder, still trying to awake her, and her head rolled on the side exposing her right blue ear to Maria, and she could barely repress another scream when she saw what had happened to that poor girl. Her right ear was opened and the cable with the biggest diameter was dangling from her ear. Being a persocom herself, she knew what this cable was for. It was the recharging cable, as persocoms can give a huge pull to the mains, it was equipped with a standardized rugged plug with gold plating.

But on this poor girl, the plug was completely amiss, leaving only a few inches of cable hanging down, the end of the cable looking as if it was cut off...

"That's it" Maria said "I'll take you immediately to the only two persons I know, who will be able to help you."

'If it's not already to late.' she thought to herself.

She hurried back to the car, opening the passengers door, then hurried back to the persocom and slid one arm under the hollow of her knees and her other under her back, lifting her up gently and walked slowly back to the car and lowered her on the passengers seat, securing her with the safety belt.

She then rushed to the driver side to jump in and slammed the door shut, shifted the gear to reverse and turned the ignition key all at once.

Rushing down to the main street and heading to the town as fast as safety allowed, to the only two people who might be able to rescue her, Maria thought 'Hang on girl, I'll hope it's not to late...'

When she arrived at the town, it was already two hours past midnight. Hoping that Britta and Tom where at home in the apartment above the shop, Maria's car came to a sliding stop just before the persocom shop, Maria jumped out of the car and headed to the entrance, pressing her thumb on the button, nearly squashing it.

She rang up a storm, which was soon answered by a light shining through the windows above the store, naked footsteps on the stairs down to the shops salesroom and a grumbling voice saying "Who ever it is, you better have a good reason, or I'll charge two, no, four times the normal due, or I should do it anyway!"

The shop door was unlocked and ripped open to greet Maria with the sight of Tom in his pajamas, a snarl on his face, which gave way to a mixed expression of confusion and worry, when he saw Maria standing on the sidewalk.

Maria gave him no time to regain his composure, just pointing to her car, turning around on a heel and jumped to the passengers door, Tom following her to see the other persocom strapped to the seat. His mouth dropped, as he saw that the unknown persocom was stripped down to the waist "What... How..." escaped his mouth.

The safety belt unlocked, Maria pulled the persocom from the seat and turned her head to Tom saying "Give me a hand her, but be careful, I don't know what other injuries she has."

"What other injuries?" Tom asked, with a puzzled look on his face. It was only than, that in the dimly lights of the streetlamp he saw she slash on the persocom's left arm and his eyes grow wide with shock.

Jumping in to grab the legs of the persocom, whose upper body was carried by Maria, and they carried her into the shop. On their way to the back of the shop, where the diagnostic console stand, Tom turned his had to the stairs, shouting "Britta, please come down here, it's urgent!"

While Britta came down the stairs, asking what was this all about, Tom and Maria lowered the injured persocom gently onto the diagnostic chair

When Britta saw the beat up persocom, she muffled a scream with her hand over her mouth and rushed over to where Tom and Maria stand by the sides of the chair.

Both Britta and Tom turned their looks from the persocom on the chair to Maria, and before one of them could ask any questions, Maria said "To cut it short. I found her in my stable when I came back home, don't know how she got there, who she is or why she is so beat up."

Maria stepped aside to the foot of the diagnostic chair, to make room for Britta to have a closer look at the unknown persocom.

Both Tom and Britta nod and started to examine the injury.

In the light of the salesroom they also saw that the persocom had burn marks on her torso, and then Tom noticed that ruined power cable hanging from the persocom's right ear.

Seeing Tom looking at her, Maria said "I'll already tried to wake her, when that was fruitless, I thought of taking her inside to recharge her, but then I saw the plug was missing. That's why I rushed here"

"As beaten up as she is, that might even have been her luck, trying to charge up a persocom over the mains who is injured and drenched as she is, could have lead to a total inner power grid melt down." said Britta.

Maria looked shocked over this news, thinking 'I might even have killed her, If it wasn't for the power cable being cut off!'

Seeing the expression on Maria's face, Tom tried to calm her down "It's alright, being outside most of the day, you recharge yourself entirely from sunlight, so how could you have known. And see, all worked out good this far, so know let's see how we can help this poor girl."

He continued "First we have to get her internals dried and then replace the slashed power cables in her forearm, and there are also some signal traces and muscle fibers that we must take care of."

He then pulled a frame on wheels with a cylinder extruding from one side over the perscom's forearm and switched it on. The cylinder gave up a warm red glow which he then focused to the wound. The infrared rays made short work of the water that was sipped through the crack into the internals by evaporating it.

"We have to be very thoroughly, making sure, no condensing is left, that will take some minutes." Tom said.

Now that Maria could only stand by and wait, having the chance for the first time to take a closer look at the persocom's face. She had dark brown hair, which curled down to the middle of her back and framed a heart shaped face with a narrow but somewhat longer nose above full bloomed ruby lips. Above her eyes were medium wide curved eyebrows, a shade darker than her hair, they looked nearly black. Her small coned blue ears, pointing slightly backwards, barely visible through her full mane.

She also noticed, that something about her facial expression was wrong. All persocoms are programmed to have a peaceful, or at least neutral, expression when in standby mode or shut down, it's just how any human would look like in his sleep.

'But on her face, it was more an expression of... fright, as if someone having a nightmare.' Maria thought.

A short beep from the infrared lamp snapped her out of her thoughts, announcing the completion of the drying process.

Being so concentrated on the persocom's face before her, she didn't even noticed that Tom had brought an assortment of wires and fibers and some bottles with a skin colored liquid from the storing room, while Britta watched the drying process, making sure, all went well.

Tom and Britta getting to work, cautiously removing torn and cut wires, replacing them with new ones, now and then holding probes to the newly made connections, taking measurements and reading them of the diagnostic screen making sure all connections work well. Also the damaged muscle fibers were carefully replaced.

Finally, Tom held a probe to the persocom's skin, which was a shade darker than her own skin noticed Maria, more like skins of people from south Europe. The box that the probe was connected to gave of a beep and a clicking sound, when a slit in the front of it opened, and a small bottle dropped out. Tom taking the bottle and mixing it in with the contents of the skin replacement bottles to tint it to the ride shade, so the replaced skin would melt in with the color of the persocom's skin.

Now was the time to remove the burned skin on her upper torso, and replace some of the nerve and photo-voltaic grid that was also damaged.

The skin being repaired, there was no sign left, it was ever damaged. Being the final step, Britta replaced the power cord with a new on. Then she went upstairs, to bring one of her tees down to the salesroom, asking Maria to help her get the persocom on the diagnostic chair dressed.

"I don't want her to feel that exposed, when she wakes up." said Britta, when Maria was holding the persocom's torso up to let Britta slip the tee on.

"What were those burn marks she had on her upper torso?" asked Maria, after they got the persocom dressed.

Britta looked at Maria, hesitantly to answer that question, but when she did, Maria saw tears standing in Britta's eyes "They were burn marks from cigarettes"

Hearing this, Maria held her hands over her breast, as if she felt a sting to her own skin, a look of utter fright and shock on her face.

It was already 5'o clock in the morning, when they could connect the power cord to the console, and get the persocom recharged.

Knowing, it would take some time to recharge a completely drained power cell, both Tom and Britta turning to face Maria, and Britta asked "Mind to fill us in on some more details about your finding?"

Maria shrugged her shoulders "Not much more than the short version I'll already told you. She was already out when I found her, and about her injuries I don't know how she got them. But I think, she already had them before she broke into my stable"

Both Britta and Tom exchanges looks, than turning to Maria again Tom said "When we had a closer look at the cut on her forearm and the power cable, we saw, this could only be deliberately be slashed and cut. Even if we consider that she's been wandering around in the wild and had some accidents, she surely would have wounds all over her body, and the cut also looked so smooth, it must be something else than just a sharp stone or something like that, more like a very sharp knife!"

Maria winced at the thought, someone could do that deliberately to a persocom. 'Or any other living creature.' she thought to herself.

Seeing her reaction, Britta jumped in "Darling, you know that the 'incident' happening just some months ago lead to confusion and some very unpleasant acts against persocoms, because 'owners' of persocoms found that they behaved strangely, or even disobedient, when all this just steamed from the feelings that persocoms were now able to experience, being uncomfortable with some things the humans demanded them to do. Many persocoms were turned in to get their memory wiped and reinitialized, what didn't solved the 'problem', because the code was already patched into any program on any database server world wide, but only destroyed the personality of that persocom that he or she had build up so far. Tom and I had always looked at it like a kind of execution and refused to do any such thing to any persocom brought in by a customer. Some humans even go to the extend of having their persocoms get trashed."

Seeing Maria shudder, Britta stopped her rambling, saying "I'm so sorry dear, didn't mind to bring that up again, but knowing what a wonderful and caring person you and most of the other persocoms I know are, I can't let my mind just settle on that."

Maria, regaining her composure, stroked up a small smile at Britta and said "Knowing that you two will never partake in the destruction of a persocom's personality and how you view beings like me as being sentient, reminds me, why I consider you two as my closest friends."

Britta and Tom both smiled at that.

All three were startled by the console giving up short beeps, to announce the completion of the recharging cycle.

The screen read:

' Charging complete '

' Power cell level: 99.9% '

' Awaiting command '

Tom turned towards the console, entering some commands to start up the persocom's system, which was acknowledged by a short beep.

Shortly thereafter, a swirling and humming sound came from the body of the persocom in the diagnostic chair, and was accompanied by her eye lids fluttering open, some streaks of white still crossing her irises while her system booted up.

Tom, reading the consoles screen, had a look of concern on his face when he read

' Commencing boot sequence... OK '

' Checking CPU... OK '

' Checking RAM... OK '

' Checking Disc status... OK '

''

' Unit: Warning, unrecognized characters in string '

' Name: qw#oc o(jsd&ojkf '

' Owner: kl;ls jsljd%o '

Then just a bunch of what seemed like a random combination of letters and symbols flew by, all the time the console gave up short beeps, till the last thing that was heard from it, before the screen went blank, sounded like someone stepped on a cat's tail.

Tom's expression of concern deepened, now mixed with sadness, as he looked up from the screen and turned to look at Maria, saying "I'm very sorry Maria, it seems that all was for nothing, her memory looks like it's messed up big time by her last shut down and..."

He was cut of by Maria's action, as she turned her head away from him looking directly into the now clear brown eyes of the persocom as she fixated her gaze on Maria, who was standing at the feet of the diagnostic chair, and spoke to her for the first time, with the universal question anyone who wakes up from being unconscious asked

"Where am I?"

Seeing the mix of disorientation and fear in the eyes of the now fully awoken persocom young woman, Maria, with a warm smile on her face and in a very soft voice said to her "My name is Maria. Your with friends her, no one will do you any harm. See, my friend Britta," she gestured to her left, which made the woman turn her head to her right side and was greeted by Britta's friendly face. But it still let her jerk back a little, seeing she was a human woman ", and Tom" pointing at him with her head, which made the woman turn her head to her left "took good ca..."

Maria was cut off by the persocom's sudden and totally unexpected reaction.

At realizing that Tom was a male human, her eyes grew wide, her face a mask of sheer terror, one arm stretched out as if to hold Tom at distance, using her other arm to cover her breasts, as she hadn't had the time to realize she no longer was naked above her waist.

All the while she was screaming "No... No... Please don't hurt me!"

She tried to jump up from the chair, but with her power and data cable still connected to the console, this could lead to serious damage on her connectors or even her internal electronics, so Britta leaned over to keep her down, being as gently as the situation allowed.

Feeling Britta gently holding her down made the persocom woman turning towards Britta, grabbing the arms of her nightgown and pulling herself to Britta, pressing her head against her chest, her screams died down to a whispering cannon of "Please, don't let him hurt me, please..." all the while, her body was shaking from sobs.

Britta, now embracing the disturbed persocom, trying to calm her down by whispering "Sh.. sh.. You are completely safe here, no one will hurt you."

Than she looked at Tom, who already jumped up from his chair at the sudden outburst of the persocom and took some steps backward, signaling him with her eyes, he should leave the room, which he did, still with a perplexed expression to his face.

When Tom had left, to go up stairs to their apartment, Britta said to the persocom, who still clings to her nightgown, with her whispering had ebbed away,but her body still trembling "See... He's gone, and he will not come back, if you don't want him to return."

It took the persocom's woman all her courage, but she finally turned her head around, looking over the interior of the shops salesroom so see, only she, Maria and Britta were left.

"And if you let go of my nightgown, I'll be able to disconnect you from this console" said Britta.

She loosens her grip on the fabric, as Britta ended the embrace, but kept the warm smile on her face.

Only then she realized, she was wearing a t-shirt and her left arm looked as if it never was injured. Puzzlement on her face, she looked at Maria, who hadn't said a word, but had watched the events first with concern, but now seeing the persocom seems to accept, she will not be harmed, she said "See, I told you, you're with friends here, Britta and Tom took good care of you while you were out. I was totally freaked, when I found you in my stable, seeing the state you were in, I thought you might never come back to life."

The expression of puzzlement on the persocom's face deepened as her head rocked back and forth between Maria and Britta, sending her curled hear flying around, several thoughts crossing her mind 'Back to life? They are worried about ME!? Why they are so kind to me?'

"But... But I broke into your home," she stuttered "and what do you mean by 'Back to life', I'm a persocom, I never was alive anyway, I'm only a machine..."

"So am I, but that doesn't make me feel less alive than any other person I know. And your display of fear and that you tried to find shelter in my stable shows to me, that you are very much alive and don't want to cease to exist, or do you?" sad Maria "And about the housebreaking, I'm sure you didn't mean to harm any of my horses, only trying to find shelter from that cloudburst."

"Horses?" asked the persocom. 'And do I want to continue to be funct... alive?' she thought to herself.

"Yes, I'm running a horse shelter farm, and that reminds me," said Maria, checking her internal clock "it's about time to return there, my horses are surely eager to get breakfast."

Britta, who meanwhile had disconnect the persocom from the now useless console, and Maria exchange looks and knowing how she freaked out about Tom being near her, Britta asked "Maria, would you mind to take our new friend with you back to the farm, I'm sure she would be more at ease knowing she would not run into any human male by chance."

"Are you comfortable with that?" asked Maria "Oh, over all that turmoil, we forgot to asked you what your name is."

At this question, the persocom's big brown eyes showed some streaks running through them for a second, trying to access her memory where her name would be stored, but nothing than garbage came up, that she didn't even know how to pronounce, then she stuttered "I... I... I can't remember" as her face fell.

"Okay, but I don't think I want to go on calling you just 'you', mind me to pick one for you than?" asked Maria and on seeing that her new friend just nodded, start thinking what she find would be a appropriated name, surely not 'Jane Doe' she sniggered to herself, than she remembered an old myth and asked "What about Lilith?"

The eyes of the persocom in question glazed over for a fraction of a second, than she said with a somewhat monotone voice "Name 'Lilith' accepted, are you my master now?"

For a second, Maria stand there just looking dopey at Lilith, than she bursts into laughter, that was only stopped by Lilith's question "S... Sorry, did I said something stupid?"

Still sniggering "No..." Maria, finally regaining her composure, answered "But I'm surely not your master, to say it plainly, you are just your own master from now one, just as I am."

"My own master?! But every persocom is bought by someone, aren't you bought by someone? And wouldn't that make him your master?" asked Lilith, confusion in her voice.

Maria didn't let the thought of her father bubble to the front of her mind, instead she said to Lilith "Sure, but there are people who will not regard us as being just a useful machine, although, most of the time, people treat their persocoms only nice, because they paid a lot of money for them. But after what happened a few months ago to all persocoms world wide, it broke loose a debate about persocoms being sentient and have a will on their own, or not. But even before that, there were humans that thought of us as not just an appliance, and treated us as being equal to any other person in the world. There were even some people having a relationship with their persocom, not as being their obedient servant, but as being equals, some people even get married to one, although they were far and in between."

"Having my own will? Relationships between persocoms and humans? Marriage?" Lilith's eyes glazed over, thinking about what she just heard.

Britta and Maria getting worried, when Lilith seemed to not come out of her trance, so Britta standing at the head of the diagnostic chair, put a hand on Lilith's left shoulder shaking her lightly, what made Lilith snap back to normal.

Checking her clock again, Maria said "It's really about time to head home. I'm sure you will like being away from humans again for a while, right?"

Seeing that Maria addressed her, Lilith nodded, and stand up from the chair she was sitting on. After she rose to her feet, Maria noticed, Lilith was about her height, which was about 5 feet 9 inch 'So I can borrow her some of my cloths for the time being,' she thought 'although my new friend is a little more busty than I am.'

Maria walked over to Britta, to pull her into a hug, saying "Thank you very much, for saving her. And tell Tom, he should not bother him self about Lilith freaked out about him, I'm sure, she would have done the same about any human male, maybe she will be able to tell us what happened to her, but even if not, I'm happy that she is alright again, at least her body. All other things will fall into place eventually."

Letting go off Britta, Maria turned to Lilith, who watched the closeness between Britta and Maria with bewilderment, but as Maria gave her a warm smile and grabbed her hand to lead her out to the car, she was happy to tag along.

After both persocom's took a seat in the car and Maria drove off to the road that will bring them to her farm, she asked Lilith, if she mind listen in onto some music from her CD player. As Lilith shook her head, to show she wouldn't mind, Maria switched on the player, but forgot that she had left the volume set to nearly maximum.

As the music starts to blast into Lilith's ears, she would have surely jumped through the roof of the car, if it was not for the safety belt that restrained her.

Maria shouted "Sorry dear, I forgot, not anyone likes to have their audio input units maltreated this way" reaching for the volume knob to turn it down.

Recovering from her shock, her facial expression softens, but she just sat there staring out of the front pane of the car, as the sun started to rise over the horizon.

After about ten minutes passed, and Lilith was still staring into the sunrise, with eyes that seems to not take in anything of her surroundings, Maria get a little restless.

"Sorry again" said Maria, now in a normal volume "didn't mean to startle you like that."

Lilith's gaze seems to return from far away, as she turned her head to Maria "Yeah, I was really shocked at first, but now..." pausing for a moment, then continuing "This music makes me feel kinda..." Lilith tried to find the right word to describe the effect that the music has on her "...tingly." she finished her sentence.

"Tingly? Uh... yes, Kate Bush's voice can have that effect, same with me sometimes" smiled Maria, thinking to herself 'She surely had some tough times, but I'm very happy to see, she can still enjoy life.'

Than she asked "Any other kind of music you'll like to listen to?"

Lilith's face dropped somewhat "I don't know, all I can remember is that I was wondering in the wild the last days, trying to stay away from any human houses. When it starts to rain, I tried to find shelter under a shelf, or in a cave, but the last time it caught me far from any thing that could give me shelter from that cloudburst, that was when I broke into your stable without thinking..." she trailed off.

When Maria noticed the look of concern creeping onto Lilith's face, she was fast to say "It's okay. A chain and a shackle can be easily replaced, but you can't be replaced."

"But we are persocoms! If we brake, we can be replaced with a new one from a shop. Your friends Britta and Tom," Lilith shuddered slightly at the though of Tom "are running a persocom shop, aren't you from a persocom shop yourself and were bought by someone?"

Maria, knowing Lilith didn't mean any insult with what she's been asking, answered "To tell the truth, it was exactly this shop where my friends rescued you, that I woke up for the first time, when my fa... my owner bought me." she hastily corrected herself, about to say 'father', what surely would have confused Lilith, and she don't want to explain her relationship with Eric to Lilith, at least not now, and then continued "But they stopped selling persocoms after the incident a few months ago, only doing repairs now. That cut their earnings somewhat, but they don't want to sell persocoms to people, who will not at least treat them respectful, and they can't check for that on any customer, so they simply stopped selling them."

Lilith's eyes glazed over from some white streaks, as her mind tries to sort out what she heard, the phrase 'Being treated respectful' lingered in there. Then she asked "What about your owner?"

On seeing that Maria's face took on a sad look, she add "Sorry, I don't meant to be intrusive, you saved me, I don't want you to..."

Brighten up her face and waving her right hand at Lilith, Maria said "How could you have known? My 'owner' passed away last year, he was very old, already into his 70's when he purchased me, to help him with the chores. He was 85 when he died. I was very sad when he passed away, but I wouldn't exchange the time and memories I have for anything in the world. Life is not always fair, but all my experiences made me who I am now, and as the good ones far outweighs the bad ones, I'm still happy to be me."

Taking in the information, Lilith was slightly irritated about the way Maria pronounced the word 'owner', but didn't want to dig any deeper.

Some time had passed, while they both chatted away, as Lilith was taken a little by surprise, when Maria took a turn into the way to her farm, not repeating the stunt she pulled last time, thinking 'Don't want to scare that poor girl to death.'

When the car came to a stop, short before the main building, Maria stopped the engine, taking her belt of and got out of the car, signaling to Lilith to do the same.

As both stand before the door of Maria's house, she waved at Lilith to follow her "You surely want to take a rest, maybe take a shower before changing clothes, I'll let you in and give a short tour around, so you know were everything is, but I don't have time now to keep you company. It's already a hour late to feeding time, so I have to go over to the stable shortly."

Unlocking the door and let it swing open, she tries to usher Lilith into the house by putting a hand on her back, when she feels that the persocom has been frozen in place. Turning to face Lilith, she saw a trace of fright in her face and tried to calm her down "There's no one in the house, so nothing to be frightened of, and I'll be back shortly after feeding the horses and do some stable chores."

Lilith, still looking uneasy, her words only a whisper "I rather come with you, I do not want to be alone."

"Okay then, we'll get you into better shape later." with that she closed the door again, and was on her way to the stable, closely followed by Lilith.


	4. Chapter 4 - Start of a new life?

Abandoned

Chapter 4 - Start of a new life?

**{ Authors note: Sorry for the delay, the first three chapters were already done, with only some minor last minute changes, when I put them up. This chapter was done as well, but I had to made more changes to it to get a better plot (at least in my opinion ;) ), and what should have been chapter 4, is now divided into 4 and 5. And I wouldn't mind some more reviews, might they be good or... not so good. But now on to the fourth chapter. }**

Both were greeted by neighs and snorts and even some impatient hoof stomping when they entered the stable.

Being a persocom, she wasn't able to taste, as there was no need for a persocom to eat, but she had some sensors for air analysis, not rather for her own sake, but for persocom owners, to be warned about dangerous gases, or maybe a pan that was keep to long on the stove.

Being out the second she came into the stable last time, Lilith hadn't had any time to take in the scent that lingers in the air. But now she was taken by surprise by a strong smell. But taking some deep breaths, she found that it wasn't really unpleasant. It even was kind of intoxicating.

"Sorry boys and girls for being late. And may I introduce you to my new friend Lilith" Maria said, waving at Lilith.

More neighs and snorts answered them.

"Seems, they like you." giggled Maria "You were ever around horses before?"

Lilith shook her head.

"Just be careful, they will not willful mean you any harm, but as strong and heavy as they are, it could lead to severe injuries not being on the look out all the time."

Lilith nodded in understanding, asking "How can I help?"

"You don't have to, you might rather have a rest. By the way, I'm used to do all the work on my own."

But Lilith was insisting on helping her.

"Okay. See the buckets lined up over there." Maria pointing at the back of the stable "They have name tags on them because every horse got a different amount of fodder, depending on his size and weight. And being a retirement farm, we also have some horses, who need special nourishment."

Then she walked to the back of the stable, opening some large boxes, grabbing a shovel and started to fill the buckets with just the right amount and combinations of food. Taking one bucket in each hand, pointing with her head at the next two in line, Lilith did the same.

They walked back to the first horseboxes, already eagerly awaited by the white gelding in the box, she opens a hatch in the box wall and poured the contents of the bucket into a tub behind the hatch. Lilith noticed the name 'Salt' on the bucket and the same name on the door of the box.

After closing the hatch, Maria turned to the next box, which was inhabited by a black mare, the name on the door to that box reading 'Pepper'

When she was done feeding Pepper, she looked at Lilith, and was surprised to see her smile. When she asked her what she found so amusing, Lilith only pointed at the white and black horses and then to the name plates.

"Oh that. We got them, that is Eric Miller and me, in a very bad shape. They were handed to us by some animal activists, who had them rescued from a riding stable, where they were treated very poorly. They had bruises all over and were emaciated to the bones. Luckily, we could get them back to their former beauty and health. And as the former owner didn't tell the names of the horses, and as they are always together, we found that Salt and Pepper just fit them perfectly."

Lilith's smile dropped at hearing the sad story, but had to ask "Who is Eric Miller?"

"He was the one who bought me." Than before Lilith had the chance to say anything she asked "Want to feed the next two?"

Nodding eagerly, Lilith walked up to the third box in the row, saw the name plate read 'Misty'. The name belonging to a slender gray mare. She took the bucket reading the same name, opened the hatch, as she saw Maria had done, and poured the contents into the tub. After she closed the hatch, Misty seemed to not take any notice that her breakfast was ready, but instead poked her head out of the box, her ears perked up at Lilith and her nostrils wide and snorting.

When Lilith took some steps forward toward the box door, Maria was watching Lilith's every move, ready to jump in, knowing Lilith would not harm Misty, but never being around horses, she might make a wrong move.

But Lilith just stretched out her right hand slowly towards Misty, her palm facing upward, then standing completely motionless as Misty stretched her neck and sniffed at the outstretched hand. Misty making some gentle snorting and neighing sounds, than nodding her head as if to acknowledge Lilith, who then took a step closer, her fingertips now gently caressing Misty's nose.

Maria watched all this with amazement, not only knowing that Misty is very shy most of the time, but also how Lilith instinctively did everything just right moving very calm and canny.

Misty finally found, it's time to go for her meal. She shook her head to send her gray mane flying, then turned to the tub to munch away at her breakfast.

Turning around, Maria saw a very bright and happy smile on Lilith's face.

But that soon dropped as Lilith saw an expression on Maria's face, she misinterpreted as disapproval of her action "S... Sorry, have I done something wrong?"

But her smile returned as Maria reassured her, that she was only amazed and haven't seen to many people acting so right towards horses, just out of instinct, and that Misty was normally very shy about strangers, be it humans or persocoms.

After that, they made it quick to feed all the other horses, which were two Shire mares, who together occupying a larger box, a very heavy work horse, and some ponies of different sizes, and when they were done, returned to the main house.

On the way back there Maria asked "You seem to like horses, don't you?"

"They are just so beautiful, and I like their smell." answered Lilith, a note of delight in her voice.

'Maybe, she'll be as horse crazy as I am in no time.' thought Maria, smiling at Lilith.

After they both entered the main house, Maria showed Lilith around the medium sized house.

The front door aside, the small entrance hall had two doors to the left, one ahead and one to the right and a narrow staircase on the right leading to the rooms on the second floor, with a small door under the stairs, leading to the cellar.

Starting from the left, Maria opened each door, to show Lilith a small storage room, which had a connection to the room behind the next door, the kitchen. The door across from the entrance leading to the living room, which also had a connection to the kitchen.

And the last door, right from the entrance, was leading to what looks like a small office, occupied by a desk, with a PC sitting beneath it and telephone, printer, keyboard and a flat screen on top. Most of the walls had shelves on them stuffed with books and folders, only once interrupted by a filing cabinet and a window, looking at a garden.

After Lilith followed Maria to the second floor, she showed her her own room at the left end of the hall. It was quite big, but had not to much room left to move around, because it was dominated by a big bed in the middle of the room, one desk to the back of the room, with a window above it, looking out to the stable and the pasture behind it. There were also some shelves with lots of books on it. Most of them about technical stuff, like mechanical engineering, engine maintenance and lots of book about tractors and other agricultural machinery. And of course a whole shelve equipped with books about horses.

Under a second window stands a small dressing table, which top was a little cluttered by an assortment of lipsticks, little boxes with rouge and lip-gloss and even some flagons with perfume and an opened box, revealing some jewelery.

Seeing Lilith's perplex look, that was locked to the mess on her dressing table, Maria said "Hey, I'm a girl after all, so wearing a nice dress now and then, when out on the town, is a nice change to wearing t-shirts, jeans and heavy boots when working on the farm. That I'm wearing a skirt and sandals right now, is only because I hadn't time to change with all that was going on in the last hours."

"First, we should get you showered and dressed, and if you still want to give me a hand with the horses," Maria looked questioning at Lilith, who nodded eagerly, "I get you some more decent clothes, and aside for the tee Britta lends you, we will put your clothes into the trash, it you don't want to keep them for sentimental reasons."

Without waiting for Lilith's answer, Maria turned to her commode, pulling out some drawers to collect some panties and socks, not bothering with looking for a bra, because she knew it wouldn't fit to well on Lilith, who surely had a cup size more than she had.

Then stepping to her wardrobe, to pick a pair of jeans, a flannel shirt and also a pair of rugged boots, which would surely serve Lilith better with the next work at hand than the frail things Lilith was wearing on her feet.

Collecting everything but the boots, and gave the stack of clothes to Lilith, she showed her the way to the bathroom, which was just next door. Taking a fresh towel out of a corner cupboard and hanging it next to the bathtub and asking if Lilith had everything she needs to take a nice shower, which was affirmed by a nod, she turned to the bathroom door, telling Lilith, she was just next door if she needs everything else. With that, she closed the door to go to her room, to change into something more suitable for the next work to do at the stable.

After she changed, Maria sat on the bed, hearing the water from the shower still running, and waited for Lilith to come back.

Meanwhile, Lilith had lathered up her hair the third time with the special persocom shampoo she had found in the shower, to get rid of all the dirt collected in there from the time she was wandering through the wilderness. After she thoroughly cleaned the rest of her body, she turned of the shower and stepped out of the bathtub and fetched the towel to dry herself off. Britta's t-shirt aside, all her old clothes had landed in the bin.

After putting on the panties and socks Maria had given to her, she stand before the bathroom cabinet looking at her upper torso in the mirror.

If any, there were only nearly invisible scars left, and when she softly touched it, she could feel her fingertips on her skin. Also her formerly nearly useless left hand was moveable as if it never was damaged. She stand there for some minutes, as a feeling of thankfulness rushed through her mind.

She fluffed up her hair, which dried much faster than human hair does, with a brush, and after a longer look into the mirror she thought 'I still can not believe how kind everyone is to me, even... Tom seems to not be any threat. And thinking back, It was more like I scared him. And Maria, a persocom being her own master, even possessing her own farm, and let me come with her and taking me into her home, knowing nothing about my past...'

She was a bit startled, as her thoughts were cut short by a knock on the bathroom door, and Maria's concerned voice asking if everything was alright.

"Just need a little longer for my hair to dry, sorry!" Lilith assured Maria, and was quick to put on the trousers and shirt than opening the bathroom door, to be greeted by Maria, who was smiling ear to ear about the hairdo that Lilith was showing, not being able to bring out more than "WOW, you are sooooo cute!"

Lilith was about to thank Maria for her kindness, as both were startled by the phone ringing in the office downstairs.

"Hold that thought for a minute, I'll have to get the phone, I'm sure It will be Britta or Tom" Maria said over her shoulder, already half way down the stairs.

She picked up the handset, and indeed, it was Britta who was calling, her first question being "So, did you both made it home save?"

"Yes" was Maria's answer "And I already found out, Lilith likes 1980's music as long as I keep it under 120 decibel, and she's scarred to death by a 170 pound human male, but likes to cuddle with a horse that out weights her by a factor of ten" she continued, smiling at Lilith, who has followed her down the stairs.

"Is it Britta or Tom on the phone?" was Lilith's question as she stand under the door to the office, and seeing that Maria nods, she said "Please tell them, I am very thankful that they saved me, and I apologize for my reaction towards Tom."

Britta, who had heard what Lilith had said, told Maria to tell her, they both understand her reaction, seeing the state she was in when she was brought to the shop by Maria.

After she relayed that to Lilith, Maria asked about the crashed console.

"Tom had the thing already up and running again, but the data log of Lilith's memory is a complete mess, we both had never before seen such a huge amount of garbage from a persocom hard disc. We still wonder, how Lilith is being able to even move!"

"But she can, and she helped me feeding the horses and we both were on our way to the stable again, to finish our morning chores. So I think, she'll be okay for now." with that, Maria bid goodbye to Britta and put the handset back on its stand.

Turning to Lilith, Maria asked "You looked, like you want to say something a moment before the phone rang?"

Lilith lowered her head, looking at the floor "You know nothing about me or my past, I don't even know it myself. Maybe I was left in the wild for a reason, maybe I am dangerous, I might even have killed someone, you might be better off, if you had let me di..."

Maria ended Lilith's lament when she rushed around the desk and pulled her into a tight hug, whispering into her ear "You know what, humans are often talking about their instinct, or their sixth sense, what ever you call it and what ever the equivalent is in a persocom, I 'know' you would never harm someone for no reason. I saw, how you were acting towards my horses and that is all I need to know, you can't be a bad person."

Lilith became stiff as a stick at first, but after she heard what Maria whispered in her ear, she put her arms around Maria leaning her head against her shoulder.

When Maria asked "You okay now?" Lilith didn't say a word, but Maria could feel her head nodding against her shoulder.

Both just standing there for what seem an eternity, till Lilith loosened her grip and Maria took a step backwards.

When she looked at Lilith, she saw that she still hadn't more on her feet than the socks she gave her.

"You better put the boots on too, for our next work could get a bit dirty. It's not like the meals we gave the horses earlier, are vanishing to nothing"

Lilith tilted her head to the side, thinking about what Maria just said, and when it dawned on her, she blushed slightly with a look of embarrassment on her face.

"Want to pass on this one?" Maria asked, only to be answered by a vigorous head shake from Lilith.

So after Lilith put her boots on, they were both once more on their way to the stable.

For the boxes to be mucked out, the horses had to be put in the corral across from the boxes. So Maria showed Lilith, how to put the halter on, to lead the horses to the corral.

After she demonstrated it with Salt and Pepper, she asked Lilith, if she want to try it herself with Misty.

Lilith nodded yes, a bright smile on her face. Than stepping to the door of the box, where Misty was already looking out, taking the halter from the hook next to the door. But when she tried to put it on, Misty flipped her ears back, a sure sign, she wasn't to fond of the idea to have the halter slipped over by Lilith.

Maria was about to say, Lilith shouldn't take it to hard and Misty was always a little capricious, Lilith starts to talk to Misty.

Except for herself and a very few people, she never had heard someone talking so soothing to a horse, Lilith's voice more a soft singing than speaking, that had something hypnotic to it. And it had an immediate effect on Misty.

Misty's ears perked up, she took a step forward and pressed her head against Lilith chest, and Lilith put her hands around Misty's neck caressing her ears.

They parted after a few seconds, and now it was easy for Lilith to put the halter on and after opening the box door, they went alongside over to the corral.

When Lilith returned to help with the next horses, Maria turned her head to the side to not let Lilith see, she had tears in her eyes.

After she blinked her tears away, she gave Lilith a smile and both were soon done with the other horses, and after some minor mishap with the wheelbarrow and the dunghill on Lilith's behalf, which made it necessary to wash her hair another three times this morning, both were done with work at the stable for at least some hours.

Maria got a new set of cloths out for Lilith, who took them with a face showing more than a little embarrassment.

"Really no reason to be ashamed, the first time I mocked out, I wanted to show that a female persocom is as good at hard work than any male groom. So I overdid it by putting so much dung on the wheelbarrow that I first had problems to get it up to the top of the dung hill, and than when I tried to unload it, it pulled me over so I dived head first into to top of the heap. I had to hose myself of for about 20 minutes, before Eric let me into the house to take a bath."

As Lilith envisage Maria stuck upside down in the dung, only her legs waving about in a struggle to get free, she burst out into uncontrollable laughter, which only ebbed away after some seconds, then she went to the bathroom, still giggling.

Maria got downstairs to the living-room, still smiling over Lilith reaction, and whilst waiting for Lilith to finish her shower, switched on the TV.

She was just channel hopping, her mind more on the events of the last hours, than on the TV program, she thought aloud "No doubt, Lilith likes horses a lot, and the horses like her, and I already grown on her like we are friends for a very long time. I wish, she will stay here with me. And she could start a new and happier life."

'But what, if the one that does this horrible thinks to her, find out about her being here, and comes to get her. From a legal point of view, whoever bought her, is her owner, and can do whatever he wants with her.' Maria thought silently, her face a mix of anger and fright.

'If that happens, I could try to find help from this ever growing movement for persocom rights. Or I could try, to offer enough money to whoever wants to get her back, to convince him to let her go...'

Maria's thought were interrupted by the news on the screen...

"After one week, it is still not clear, why this unidentified man, who was killed in a car crash after being chased by the police, was on the run, when all he had done, was damaging a persocom with a knife. Maybe, it was because he had no identity card. The damaged persocom, with the appearance of a young woman, about 6 feet tall and long brown hair, was not found, and the search was canceled after 24 hours." a female newscaster was saying "Now on to the weather forecast..."

"**click**" and the TV went black.

Whilst the newscaster woman was talking, a picture of a car, crashed into a tree was shown, followed by photo of a ugly man with a stubble beard, dark piercing eyes under bushy brows and greasy hair, and Maria instantly stored screen-shots on her disc, and switched the TV off, after the news ended.

Maria said there on the couch in a state of shock thinking 'The description of the persocom was a bit vague, but all in all, it was a bit to much of a coincident, and the picture of the crashed car seems to be taken not to far away from my farm, maybe 60 or 70 miles, so if Lilith was hiding most of the time, it's possible that it took her a full week to get here...'

Maria could hear the shower stop, and a few minutes later, when Lilith's footsteps could be heard on the stairs, Maria tried her best to regain her composure, not giving away her thoughts about what she just had seen in the news.

And then Lilith appeared in the door to the living-room. She stopped there, looking at Maria, with a slight expression of uncertainty in her eyes.

As Lilith stand there in the door with a insecure look, not knowing what to do, Maria patted the place on the couch beside her, inviting her to sit down.

After Lilith sat down beside her, Maria opened the conversation by saying "There's some time, till we have to go over to the stable again, so maybe now's a good time to have a talk about the events from the last hours."


	5. Chapter 5 - Nightmares

Abandoned

Chapter 5 - Nightmares

After Lilith sat down, Maria asked "So you like to work with horses?"

Lilith's face got a dreamy expression, when she answered "Oh yes, very much. I like how they are so strong but sleek at the same time, how they move so graceful, their smell and how it feels to caress their pelt and mane, and the small noises they make... I... I simply..."

"love them" Maria finished her sentence.

Looking at Maria with big brown eyes full of surprise, Lilith asked "How do you know... What do you know... I'm so confused about this 'feeling' thing. It's like thoughts coming out of nowhere. No it's more like..."

"emotions? Coming from your 'heart', so to speak?" Maria helped out.

Lilith's eyes were crossed by white streaks for some seconds, pondering on what she heard and thinking back to the time before she was rescued by Maria and her friends. With all the new impressions flooding her mind for the past few hours after she woke up at the persocom shop, she hadn't had to much time to realize, how her mood has changed, and how her feeling of being lost has changed to that of being secure. It seemed to her, as if the knew Maria not for just a few hours, but nearly for her whole life. 'And in some way, it's exactly how it is. I still can't remember more than what happened in the last seven days, and even that is mostly blurred, being on the run, not doing more than hiding and trying to find shelter from the occasional rainfall. And do I love horses? I know, I want to be there for them, to feed them, to help to keep their boxes clean and there are surely more things to do to comfort them. And knowing, that some of them had a very tough time before they came here, I want to make them feel as secure as Maria makes me feel.'

After the last thought, she came out of her trance, looking into Maria's eyes, who had a slight expression of worry to them, because her musing had taken some time to complete, and did the first thing that her 'heart' told her to do.

She bend over to Maria and planted a firm kiss on her cheek than whispering into her hear "Thank you, for saving me."

Feeling her cheeks starting to blush, Maria could barely get a "A... Anytime, dear." out.

Before the situation could get to awkward, Maria asked "You still can't remember anything more than the time you were in the wild?"

"No. Every time I tried to access memories that are older than seven days, I got nothing but garbage. Although other data that was installed before that time isn't affected. I still can access my dictionary or my GPS map, I even found out, that I was first activated one year, eleven months, 26 days, 23 hours, 13 minutes and 3.56 seconds ago. But I still can not activate my internet access."

Hearing the last sentence, Maria looked alarmed.

"I should have thought about that in the first place, even if you would be able to access the web, you better not do so. Although your owner status, IP address and serial number seemed to be scrambled, we better not taking the risk to make your presents known, as long as we don't know what had happened to you before you ended up in the wild, okay?" Maria asked.

Lilith nodded her understanding.

Maria thought for a second, to tell Lilith about the newscast and showing her the pictures she shot, but than she opted against it, seeing that Lilith was so happy to be safe, and she don't want her to panic again, maybe about nothing.

Instead Maria said "There's some more time, before we have to go over to the stable again. So I might as well tell you a little bit more about my past and how I ended up here on this farm. That is, if you're interested?"

Lilith's eyes starts to sparkle with interest and Maria starts to tell her story.

"You already know, that my owner was Eric Miller, and he bought me at the shop were you woke up."

"He, together with his wife Bianca, build up this horse retirement farm. I never got to know her personal, because she passed away before Eric brought me here. He was 74, when he bought me. So with my 11.5 years of lifetime, I'm one of the models from the third generation of persocoms. Eric made sure, I never got any upgrade, that would change my personality. So all I ever got was a disc upgrade to 4 times the initial size, because my disc became a bit crowded after three years of operation, and he knew, that the deletion of even some small part of my memory, could change me to no longer being 'me'."

"He told me, that Bianca could not bear children, because of a riding accident she had, when she was a child. It was a stupid prank by some boys, when they used a slingshot to shot an acorn at her pony, and the poor animal in his panic bucked her off."

"Bianca always loved horses as long as she could remember, Eric told me, and that accident made it clear to her, that it isn't the fault of the animals to behave bad or becoming 'evil', but that of the heartless and thoughtless behavior of humans toward animals."

"So she became an animal rights activist even before she got into high school. And short before she graduated, it was on one of the ARA meetings, when Bianca and Eric first meet. It was love on first sight for both of them. They got married, only a few months after they met."

"Soon it was clear to them, their careers must be something that was most useful to the ARA movement. So he became a lawyer, specialized on animal rights, and Bianca became a well known veterinary. Both used their earnings in equal parts to help the ARA movement, and to build up a farm for retired or mistreated horses."

"Both were very involved with building up this farm and helping the ARA movement, and although both often thought about adopting children, it seemed to them, there would never be enough time to raise them properly."

"So time marches on, and one day, Bianca had just turned 71, Eric came home to find her lying on the floor in the stable, struck down by a heart attack. He did all he could, but it was to late..."

"So all he could do, was to fulfill her last wish, which was to be incinerated and her ashes would be left to the four winds in the woods."

"If it weren't for the horses and friends who gave him support, I think he had died of grief shortly after his wife. But now he could no longer avoid to think about who would lead the farm after his death. He tried to hire someone for this job. But as most of the money had to go into the food and care for the horses, and this farm is not just around the corner of any main town, it seemed impossible to find someone who was willing to work hard for a minimum wage, and was trustworthy to eventually lead the farm on his own, after Eric's death."

"After several months of fruitless efforts to find the right person, Eric met a young couple in a bar. Tom and Britta had just opened their persocom shop, and were giving out advertisement cards, with a 10 percent off sale, for buying a new persocom."

"When they tried to give a card to Eric, he first shrugged if of, saying, he need someone to do hard chores, and be good with handling horses, and he couldn't think, a machine would be able to do that. But Britta convinced him, to have at least a look at the new models, who were already the third generation of persocoms, and were not only good and hard workers, but with their advanced abilities to adapt to their surroundings and had self learning software, it would at least be a good idea to try it."

"Not really thinking, this would solve his problem, but also frustrated about his futile search, Eric gave it a try."

"When they arrived at the persocom shop, the first thing that surprised Eric was, that a male persocom was running the shop, whilst Britta and Tom were around the town, giving out their cards. At least a little convinced, that a persocom could be useful, he entered the shop."

"Knowing, Eric searched for a groom, who could also do hard work, Tom and Britta didn't bother to show Eric the line of female persocoms, but only their newest and strongest male models."

"Walking down the line of male persocoms, Tom and Britta explained the technical details of the persocoms, their mental and physical abilities, how long they would run with one charge, and how they auto-recharge in the sunlight and so on..."

"Later, Eric told me, it wasn't like he had a direct dislike about the persocoms that were presented to him, but he couldn't find what he thought would be essential for a persocom to have, to be a good groom. He was walking up and down the line of persocoms, when Britta asked him from the back of the shop, if Eric would like to have a cup of coffee, or something else to drink, and he turned around, for the first time looking at the lines of female persocoms right across from the line of males, and he saw me, standing there in shut down mode on a retainer. Totally oblivious to the question asked by Britta, he questioned her, if this female model could also do groom work, handle a fork, or even do mechanical work."

"Of course, was Britta's answer, but for hard work he would be better off with a male model."

"But isn't it so, that most girls have an addiction to like horses or animals in general, and aren't the personalities of the persocoms modeled after their gender? Eric's asked, which was answered by Britta that he is right, but it's easy to use a preset personality, that could be fine tuned to whatever the customer wants."

"But if I didn't use a preset personality, wouldn't that mean, this persocom would behave like a normal girl or young woman? Was Eric's next question."

Maria paused her rambling for a second, but seeing that Lilith hang on her every word, she continued,

"Eric told me that this question made Britta and Tom look at each other for some seconds, as if they had a silent conversation, before Tom answered, they had some customers, who would either not want a preset, simply forget to use one, or couldn't set one up, because they didn't understand the manual for their persocom, and that some customers turned their persocoms in for reinitializing to factory settings, because the actions of the persocoms were reported as being strange, and then let them do the setup of a personality. But that would destroy the personality of that persocom, and he or she wouldn't be no longer themselves, and they would rather not do that to a persocom."

"Eric told me, that he was a little bit confused about Tom and Britta's answer, but before he even could rational think about it, promised to them, if he bought me, and didn't use a preset, he would never turn me in to be reset or erase my memory. And he would make sure, to give me a good education."

"With that settled, Eric payed for me, and than I was activated right there in the shop. I looked around, and saw Tom, Britta and Eric, and asked, who would be my master now, and Eric Miller cleared his throat and said, a little embarrassed, it would be him. And after he told me his name and read the ownership registration number from the contract of purchase to me, I asked him, if he like to name me now. And after thinking for some seconds, he said, he would like to name me Maria."

Maria's cheek getting a light tone of red, she continued,

"I stepped down from my retainer, to say "Thank, you Master Miller, for purchasing me and naming me Maria." and then I hugged him. I noticed, he was very embarrassed by this, so I stepped back to say "Sorry, Master Miller, for doing something wrong." and dropped my head. But he put a finger under my chin, lifting my head and looked me in the eyes, and said "I'm happy that you like your name, and you don't have to call me 'Master'. Simply call me Eric." and I smiled and nodded."

"The first thing we did, was to get me clothes, as the standard outfit for female persocoms on shipping is a bit skimpy. So he got me some clothes and heavy boots for work, but also some nice dresses and girly shoes."

"Eric and me were drawing some attention when we shopped, but he didn't seem to notice back than. And then we were on our way to this farm. Eric talking all the time about this place, the ARA movement and horses."

Maria's violet eyes getting a dreamy expression when she said,

"It was a late autumn day, but very sunny, when he bought me, and the horses were out in the paddock when we were back at the farm. And seeing them playing in the sun, I was head over heels in love with them."

Checking her internal clock, Maria interrupted her story, and said to Lilith "Oh, nearly didn't notice how time flies, and we still have to do some more work at the stable, but I think you'll like the next part, as we only have to fill in new straw into the boxes, which will not take to long, and after that, we have to curry the horses."

Lilith said nothing, but her eyes lit up and a bright smile showed on her face.

With Lilith again quick at learning how to do the work, they were done with the boxes in no time, and now each woman taking one horse out of the corral onto the stable lane, and Maria showing Lilith, how to use a curry comb and brush to clean the horses, and after that checking on their hoofs, Maria saw Lilith eager but gently grooming the horses, she thought again, how happy Lilith looked now, and how happy she was, to have her here.

When they were through with grooming the horses, and now had to take care of the ponies, Lilith asked "How can you afford to keep this place and the horses?"

"There are many people donating money and food for the horses. And I didn't know if you noticed, but I have a lot of books on engine repair, especial for agriculture machinery, and having read them all, and Eric showed me a lot of tricks how to maintain them, I make quite a lot of money with that. I'll show you the workshop later on." Maria answered, "Maybe, you get the hang of that too." the last with a grin, showing she didn't meant it to seriously.

'I'll would try to learn everything, if it assures that the horses are save, and it helps you keeping this farm... and if it helps, that you like me much more..." Lilith thought, than freezing in her tracks, rethinking what had just crossed her mind.

Maria, who was looking at Lilith, only halfheartedly expecting an answer to her last comment, and seeing that Lilith was frozen, streaks of light crossing her eyes, asked "You're okay, Lilith? I was only joking, you don't have to become a mechanic, to let you stay here." now with a little concern in her voice.

Lilith, snapping back to reality and forcing a small smile, answered "I'm fine, just had to think about... something." then continued her grooming and turning her head away from Maria, to hide that her cheeks had start to blush.

Maria shrugged the reaction off, thinking it was just because of all Lilith went through and resumed her work too.

When they were finished taking care of all the horses and ponies, Maria was true to her word and showed Lilith the workshop, where she did some of the repairs. It was quite a big room, next to the stable, with all sorts of machinery, like a large lathe and a mill, both looking like they weight some tons. And a trailer at the back of the room, which was a workshop on wheels, as some of the machinery Maria hat to take care of were either stationary, or to clumsy to be moved to her garage.

Maria explained nearly all of the machinery in great details to Lilith, and was only slightly irritated, that Lilith wasn't bored at her long winding tech talk, so kept it up, as Lilith seemed to be really interested in every single information about how and for what all the tools were used, and could tell by some of Lilith's question, she was really taking in all the information.

When Maria though it was enough of her rambling about the workshop, and also had noticed, that it was time for the horses to get their evening meals, she lead Lilith out of the garage and back to the stable. This time they were even quicker with feeding, as Lilith now had some sort of routine in her work, but still had to cuddle with every horse that was looking out of the box, all of them had already found out, Lilith was as good at caressing them like Maria was, and they all liked it very much.

When the work for the day was done, and the door to the stable was locked with a new chain and padlock, Maria and Lilith were on their way back to the main house.

Both were taking seats on the couch in the living room, and although it was a long and eventful day, both didn't want to go to bed yet, but Maria was hesitant to switch on the TV, afraid that the news from this morning would show up again, so was relieved as Lilith seems to have no interest in watching TV, but instead asked "Would you please tell me more about your life here at the farm and... about Eric." the last came out with a slight hesitation, as she already noticed a undertone of sadness, whenever Maria talked about Eric.

"Uhmm, I was thinking all the time, how to explain it to you, seeing that you still have some problems with this emotion thing, that was in a way forced upon us persocoms." Maria started "I don't know how many persocoms are aware of the fact, that we all have a basic programming to please who ever is our current owner. All the more, when some settings are made on our first activation."

"But still, those persocoms can develop deeper likings towards their owners, up to the level of being in love, if they are treated nice."

"But also a strong dislike, if they are treated poorly, or even worse, are abused. But their basic programming keeps them from acting against their owners. I only heard of a few occasions, where a persocom directly acted against their owner, but some more cases, where they run away. Unfortunately, if they were found, they were just brought back to their owner, no matter how badly they were treated."

Looking directly into Lilith's eyes, Maria continued,

"It might, that you just run away from someone, who treated you very badly, and although you still can't remember what happened to you, from your first reaction at the shop when you saw Tom, I would bet my right arm, that it was a human male. And seeing how your body is modeled that you would surely look attractive to 99 out of 100 males, it could be, that he... uhmm... abused you."

"Abused me?" Lilith asked, more than a little confused.

"I... ahmm... mean sexual, knowing that you are just short of being a persocom model two years old, I thought you would be surely complete... below the waist, as this is now standard for all newer models, if not explicitly ordered without a... girly part..." Maria wasn't able to continue, hopping that Lilith would by now knowing what she tried to ask, feeling that she must be as red as a beetroot.

As Lilith got it, what Maria was asking, her face color matched that of Maria when she answered "Ohh... I... see, but I can not even remember anything like that and yes... I'm... ahmm... complete down there, but I don't feel... uncomfortable there, and I couldn't see anything... unusual when I was in the shower."

Maria gave Lilith a warm smile and let out a loud sigh, thinking to herself 'So she might not be raped, but that brings up even more questions. Why would someone bring a persocom out into the wild, just to burn and cut her, must be a totally sick bastard. And if it is the man in the news, I think, he got what he deserved! But it would still leave Lilith's owner status unanswered.'

And than, said out loud "But that's not what you asked me. You asked me about my life her on the farm. And to give you a short answer, I love it, I love to be around horses, and I like to work on machines. And as I'm not used to talk about Eric as just being my owner, and it nearly escaped me some times I talked to you about him, I have to say, that I saw him nearly all of my life as a father, not an owner. And every day he did everything to make me feel like I'm his daughter. And that's why I still got so sad, talking about him."

Maria was only a little surprised, as Lilith put her arm around her back, and pulling her head gently against Lilith's shoulder. But the comfort she felt, let her melt against Lilith's side and think 'I'm surely not a piously person, but for me, Lilith is like heaven-sent.'

Both were nearly frozen in that pose, with Lilith now and again stroking Maria's hair, and Maria nearly drowned by Lilith's wild mane, non of them saying a word for about two hours, when Maria gently disentangled herself from Lilith's hair and got into an upright position "I think, we should go to bed now, as we have to do all the work from today over again tomorrow, and I think, even persocoms like us need some time to relax.

Lilith only silently nodded her approval.

Going upstairs to the bedrooms, Maria instantly scratched the plan of setting up on of the guest rooms for Lilith, knowing that her bed has room to spare, and sure, Lilith would rather not sleeping alone.

Laying out some night clothes for Lilith, who smiled as she saw that it had unicorns printed on it and were taking of her clothes, slipping on her own nighties, all the while both don't say a word, until they were laying in the bed, Maria switched the light on the nightstand of and said "Good night Lilith, I hope you can stay here forever."

"Good night Maria, and I would love to stay here."

With that, both closing their eyes, and were laying perfectly still, but not, before Lilith reached out her hand to tenderly grab that of Maria under the sheets, making both of them drift of to sleep with a smile on their faces.

Maria woke up with a start from two things, her right hand was squeezed so tight that it hurts, and she heard an ear splitting scream, that nearly shattered the windows in the room.

She opened her eyes and looked over to Lilith, who sat upright in the bed, her scream now faded, but her eyes open wide, but only to reveal, they were crossed by white streak after streak and her beautiful face a mask of utter fright.

Maria reached over to grab Lilith by her shoulder with her free hand to awaken her from her nightmare, as her right hand was still grabbed so tightly, she couldn't get it free. Only after some very hefty shaking of her shoulder, Lilith finally seemed to return to consciousness as her eyes getting clear and her face relaxes somewhat.

Some more seconds passed, before Lilith turned her head to look at Maria, who also sat upright in the bed, and without a word collapses into Maria's lap and starts to sob, her whole body shaking. Maria put her left arm around Lilith's back and bowed down to bury her face in Lilith's mane, soothingly whispering "It's okay, it was only a nightmare, you still here with me, no one will harm you, that I'll make sure. Calm down dear."

But it was not before some more minutes, that Lilith's sobbing ebbed away gradually, and even more minutes for her body to stop trembling.

Lilith finally got into an upright position, looking into Maria's eyes, her face still carrying traces of the fright that races trough her mind.

"Must be a hell of a dream, do you remember anything about it?" asked Maria, Lilith only shaking her head as an answer.

"You remembering, that you screamed at the top of your lungs?" was her next question.

"No" was Lilith's answer "When I was in the wild, I thought I heard something like a echo of a scream when I woke up, but I always thought it was some sort of animal."

"Okay, I don't think it's a good idea, to go back to sleep, but as it is just short to 3am, we have to wait till morning, before we can do something about it. I don't want to wake Britta and Tom two nights in a row at this time.

As going back to sleep wasn't an option, both got dressed and were down the stairs to the living room.

"You want to talk?" was Maria's only question, when they sat on the couch, but Lilith only said "No, but if you..." and before she could even finish her sentence, Maria pulled her close, reversing the roles of last night. And both not speaking a word till the clock read 6:30am and they both got over to the stable, feeding the horses in silence, and even they seemed to feel, that Lilith wasn't well, many giving her a gentle nudge with the nose, as if to cheer her up.

When they were back at the house, Maria picked up the phone, calling the persocom shop. After some rings, Tom was on the phone.

"The persocom shop at the end of t..."

"Hello, Maria here... We had some trouble last night, or better, Lilith had some intense nightmare, but after she woke up, she can't remember the smallest piece about what it was, and there's some other thing I want to talk to you two about. But not over the phone."

"Very sorry to hear that, but maybe one good news. I found the reason, why the console crashed. It seems, Lilith hat build up some sort of self defense against deleting, or even reading her memory. I haven't seen anything like that before. Her trick is, to use circular pointers, that will lead to a memory overflow on any diagnostic terminal that tries to read her disc. Normally, circular pointers are detected by the software, but her's seem to be so deeply nested, the software lost track of it, so it was reading to much data in a loop, the memory of the console overflowed. I made some changes to the diagnostic software, and also hooked up as many disc's on the console as I could fit. So we might gave it another try." came Tom's voice over the phone.

"Okay, we'll be there in about an hour." said Maria, and hung up the phone. Returning to the living room, where Lilith still sat on the couch, Maria asked "You comfortable with visiting the shop again, and also Britta and... Tom?"

"You are trusting Britta and Tom, and I'm trusting you. So yes, it's okay." with that answer Lilith got up from the couch, and both were on their way to the car.

The whole drive, none of them said a word. And Maria thought 'I hope, we will not run into trouble, if anyone could see Lilith and someone had seen the same news as I had. But I have seen at least a dozen persocoms that would fit that vague description, only in this town. And not even her clothes are the same, so maybe, I'm worried about nothing.'

Driving as fast as possible, without breaking any traffic regulation, they arrived about 45 minutes after her call to the shop and made it quick to usher Lilith into the shop, where they were already awaited by Tom and Britta.

After exchanging hugs, with even Lilith hugging Tom, thanking him and Britta again for rescuing her, Tom had a smile on his face, announcing "I made a call to someone in Japan, Tokyo to be exact, and he was willing to share his knowledge and his resources to help finding a cure to your memory problem Lilith. So if you're ready, we'll hook you up again, hopefully with better results this time."

Seeing there were still some traces of concern and insecurity on Lilith face, Maria took her hand "I'll be by your side all the time." and lead her to the diagnostic chair. After she sat down, Britta gently opening her blue conic ears, to hook her up to the console.

"Are you ready dear?" asked Britta, when she was done with the setup.

And when Lilith nodded, Tom entered a sequence of numbers and letters into the keyboard and after pressing enter, the console sprang to live.


	6. Chapter 6 - Lost

Abandoned

Chapter 6 - Lost

**{ Authors note: Don't know if the last chapters were necessarily 'M' rated material, but this chapter surely is, but not for violence ;), although I don't think it's already 'MA', but YMMV. With that in mind please R & R }**

In a bungalow near the center of Phoenix was a woman in her mid 20's with short blonde hair, her blue eyes red from to much crying, about to take the keyboard and hit the flat screen before her with it in frustration, reading the line "No matches found" on the screen, about the thousandths time now in the last days, when the phone rand.

She picked it up, and before she could say a word, a female voice came over the phone "Hi darling, how's it going?"

Her first response was a loud sigh and than "Hello Cynthia, you just saved me from having to buy a new keyboard and monitor, thank you!"

"You're welcome" came the answer in a slightly irritated tone "I take it, that you still haven't found a clue on the net?"

"Not the slightest, I used any meta crawler I could find and some advanced face recognition programs, but to now avail. And missing her so much didn't make it easier to concentrate on anything useful to find her." the blond woman answered, her voice having more than a hint of despair to it.

"Care to have a break and met at the mall for breakfast? It would surely do you good to get your mind off of that fruitless search for a while..." Cynthia asked.

"But..." was all the blond could get out, before she was interrupted by Cynthia "It's not like you betraying her, I'm sure you haven't slept to well since she's missing and you might got more ideas how to find her, after some good meal and a can of coffee, and your search program will still run, if you are watching it or not, and you'll get a call as soon as it has found something, right?"

"You're right, I'll be there in about half an hour. Have to take care of my outfit, although I'm scared to look into the mirror, surely looking more worse than I feel" she blond woman answered, a wry smile on her face.

"Than I'll better give you a hour to met." Cynthia said affectionately.

"Okay, see you" with that, the woman hang up the phone, setting her program to auto search and got up from the computer desk to get ready to met her best friend at the CityScape.

When the blond woman arrived at the Breakfast Club, of course half an hour late, to be able to get herself into a at least presentable shape, she was greeted by a woman with hazel-brown straight hair, that fell just slightly over her shoulder, framing a oval face with eyes that matches her hair in color, and a snub nose over a mouth that had a wide smile to it, as she saw her friend enter the cafe.

"Hello Sam, half an hour late and you still looking like you crawled through a blackberry bush backward" Cynthia's tone and smile contradicting her words as she got up from the table to hug her best friend Samantha.

After both having a opulent breakfast, and Sam was done with her fourth mug of coffee, Sam started the conversation with "You would not believe how stupid those officers at the police station are. I tried to gave them a picture of Rhiannon and tried to convince them that she's been abducted, but all they would do, is hand me over to some bored looking officer, who took the photo and typed a view lines into his keyboard and then asked me, if I had tried to hang up some ads with a reward for finding her. As if she's a cat or dog." ending the sentence with a snort.

Cynthia put her hand on Samantha's on the table "You know, sad as it is, there aren't to many people having the same view at persocoms like you and I have. Although some people have changed their mind in seeing more than a mere machine in persocoms, and some people even fighting for their right to be self-determined, the vast majority still see them as cheap obedient servants, with no will of their own."

"But you know that Rhiannon never was like that." and Sam thought back to the day, one and a half year ago, when she first met Rhiannon...

* * *

Sam was on her way back from the riding stable, when she thought, it would be fun, to do some shopping, as it was a nice sunny February day. She parked her car somewhere near the center of the town, and took a stroll with no explicit direction in mind, when she passed by a pawnshop, that surely had seen better days.

But her eyes were caught by a golden necklace with a medium sized horse head pendant with ruby eyes in the shop window. As it was quite a massive chain of gold, and the eyes were real rubies, the price tag was very high on this beautiful gem. But maybe she could get the price down somewhat.

With that in mind, she entered she shop, her opening and closing of the door accompanied by soft ringing from the bell that hung above the door.

The interior was only dimly lit by some LED lamps and some sun coming through the greasy windowpane.

The owner of the shop seems to be busy in the back, as her eyes had more than four minutes to accommodate to the low light in the shop, before the shop holder scurried out of the office and with a not very pleasant smile wishes her a good evening, and asked what he could do for her.

"I'm interested in the necklace in the window. If we could talk about the price that is." was Sam's answer.

"Ow, that's one of my best pieces. I see, you know what you want, but I don't think, there's much I can do about the price though." the shop owner said, seemingly unwilling to lower the price.

Sam, having had already four minutes to look around for other things the shop has to offer, as the shop owner made her wait, she had already discovered the persocom woman, sitting on a stool in a corner behind the counter. Her eyes following her everywhere, and Sam was already thinking, she was just there so no one would steel something. Despite the dim light, Sam could make out, the face of the persocom hasn't an expression of interest to it, but more one of... fright?

As the owner was rambling about how this is a master piece of jewelry, Sam's eyes strayed over to the persocom in the back of the shop, now she was sure that something wasn't right with this persocom. She looked back at Sam with big brown eyes, who couldn't help but notice they now have a pleading look to them.

Sam caught the man totally of guard when she asked "Is that persocom also for sale?" and his reply only a stutter "In a way... but..."

"But what?" Sam pressed.

Seeing his profit melting, he said "You won't be to happy with her, she's... kinda... defective... The man I bought her from had tricked me, as her memory is inaccessible. Already thought about scrapping her for parts."

Now Sam could definitely make out pure fright in the persocom's face, and thought, she had heard a small gasp from her.

Sam, having already made up her mind to bought the persocom, just to save her, but was sly enough not to let the salesman know that, she asked "Okay, maybe a good idea, she still can walk? I don't want to be forced to carry her home just to disassemble her."

Not willing to scare the the poor persocom woman to death, she turned her head to her, and gave her a wink, hoping she would understand. And yes, Sam could make out a barely visible nod from the persocom and her facial expression softening somewhat.

"Of course, she can, but I only can give you a written ownership, as there's no way to change her owner status, already tried that, and it nearly fried my handheld." was the answer from the shop owner.

With that settled, Sam got the price down a lot, although she would have spend much more, if need be. After she got the subscribed ownership of the persocom woman, and had checked that it really was her serial number, she left the shop with her persocom in tow and a bag with some manuals and a persocom charger. It wasn't not a second after they both were around the corner and out of sight of the shop, when the persocom embracing her new owner so tight, Sam though, she would never let her go again.

"Okay, okay, you can let go off me now, I know you are happy to have escaped from that shop. So now tell me what's your name, or is one of your defects that you can't talk?" asked Sam, now softly shoving the persocom an arm length away from her, to look her into her eyes.

But the persocom just dropped her head, and than shook it, sending a big whirl of dark brown curled hair flying around.

"What's that supposed to mean?. You don't have a name, don't want to tell me, or can't talk?"

"Rhiannon" said the persocom woman under her breath.

"Okay Rhiannon, I'm Samantha, or Sam for short. And you don't have to be afraid anymore, I'll never do you any harm. I rather want to be your friend. If you want me as a friend, that is?"

Rhiannon's head jerked up, her gaze of disbelieve now meeting that of Sam "But you bought me, I must do whatever you want me to do, mistress."

Now it was Sam to stare in disbelieve "Look, I never had a persocom before, so is this 'mistress' thing something you programmed to, to see in me, because I bought you?"

"I guess so" murmured Rhiannon.

"You guess so?" Sam's voice having a tone of puzzlement to it "But you're not comfortable with it?"

This question made Rhiannon's eyes showing many white streaks for about some seconds, when her eyes cleared, she shook her head.

"So we will do something about it!" said Sam in a vigorous tone, which made Rhiannon look at Sam in confusion.

Instead of an explanation, Sam grabbed Rhiannon by the hand, and dragged her with her to her car, which was parked just the next street over. After they got in, Sam drove off, asking Rhiannon "How came, you ended up at that pawnshop?"

"She said to her husband, I have to leave, or she will, with the kids." was Rhiannon's somewhat cryptic answer.

"So you were with a married couple? What happens?"

"I was with Mr. and Ms. Parker. Mr. Parker bought me to look after the house and take care of the children, as both had to work to pay the rent. They have three girls, 7, 9 and 11 years old, they all liked me very much, I was there to clean the house, cook dinner and helped the children with their homework, Ms. Parker even allowed me to do the yard work. I was really happy being there till..." Rhiannon stopped mid sentence.

After Rhiannon was silent for over a minute Sam asked "What happened? I already told you, we're friends, so you can tell me everything, especial between us girls, and I will not tell anyone else, if you don't want to, okay? And maybe you fill better, if you get this off your heart."

"But, I don't have something like a heart, I'm just a..." started Rhiannon, but was interrupted by Sam, who finished her sentence "cute, beautiful and very lovely young woman" which made Rhiannon blush intensely, and Sam too, when she rethought what she had blurted out.

Sam was relieved, that just in this moment, they reached their destination, the attorney's office "Mayer, Mayer & Mayer" and it had a free parking lot just in front of it. After she parked, she got out of the car, motioning to Rhiannon, to follow her. They both entered the office, and Sam turned to the receptionist, a persocom woman, looking about 30 years old, with blond hair and green eyes, her small amber ears looking like two half hemispheres, wearing a conservative gray business suit, asking politely "Good afternoon. I want so set up a certified document, any chance, we can do it now?"

The receptionist woman answered "Good afternoon, let me have a look." than her eyes glazed over by some white streaks, and when she was back just a second after that, she said "Yes, Mr. Edwin Mayer is just free, so if you would follow me please."

The persocom woman came around her desk, and was followed by Sam and Rhiannon to the back of the entrance hall, and after a light knock on the door, which was answered by a "Just come in." from the other side, the woman opening the door, to let Sam and Rhiannon into the office. A man in his mid 50's got up from his big armchair behind a large oak desk, and came to greet Sam with a outstretched hand and a smile on his face "Nice to meet you Miss..."

"Samantha Delaney" said Sam, taking Mr. Mayer's hand to shake it.

Then he turned towards Rhiannon, his hand still outstretched, to ask "And you are, Miss..."

It took her a second to realize, she was greeted just like any other person, but than took the hand to shake it, answering "Rhiannon Pa..." "Rhiannon Delaney"

"So I take it, she is your persocom, Miss Delaney?" was Mr. Mayer's next question, followed by "And what can I do for you?" his question directed towards Samantha.

"I have just bought her, not an hour ago, and I want her to be free from any ownership. Is there a way, to set up a document that makes sure, she is as free as any human being?"

Hearing this request from Sam, Mr. Mayer raised an eyebrow, thinking for some second and than said "It should be possible, but you could also write a last will, making her your heir, so practical, she would be free then by receiving her own ownership. I had quite a lot of people here, doing that in the last years."

Sam objected "But first, I want her to be free now, and I don't want to take any risk, that I might get bankrupt and have to sell her, because I get seized."

"I see. So I will write up a transfer of ownership from you Miss Samantha Delaney, to you Miss Rhiannon Delaney" with that, he turned to his keyboard, and was quite busy typing up the document. When he was done, he printed out tree copies, and after stamping and subscribing the copies, handed one to Sam and Rhiannon, and put the third into a file cabinet after Sam and Rhiannon hat subscribed that document as well.

After paying a reasonable fee, Sam handed the bill of sale from the pawnshop to Rhiannon, who hadn't said a word since she told her name to Mr. Mayer, and they both left the office.

Being out of the building, after the receptionist woman wished them a nice day, Rhiannon found her voice again "What... Why have you done that?"

"Because I want you to be free, and that no one can take that from you again, at least as long as you don't do anything illegal that is. So you can now do whatever you want with your life. And you are free to go, wherever you want. But..." Sam's voice getting a sad undertone and finally trailed of.

At this moment, Rhiannon stepped closer to Sam, to pull her into a tight embrace, nearly drowning Sam in her curled mane, bringing her mouth to Sam's ear, Rhiannon whispers "I wish I could stay with you. It's not because you saved me, and not because you set me free. It's because I already like you a lot, and it's my own will." and after taking a short sniff "And I like your scent."

Now putting her arms around Rhiannon, Sam whispers into her blue ear "I had hoped so much that you would stay, I already like you a lot too. Oh... and about the smell, you either like Chanel No.5, or you have a thing for horses."

Letting go off each other and taking a step back, Rhiannon said, with a mischievous smile "I'm quite sure, it's not the perfume."

Both now giggling, they got back to the car, and Sam drove of to her bungalow "Hope you like my... our home."

Rhiannon didn't said a word, but smiled brightly.

When they arrived at Sam's bungalow, the car was parked in the garage and they were through the front door, Rhiannon noticed a lot of horse pictures on the walls, and some horse figurines here and there, even some unicorn figurines.

Giving Rhiannon a small tour around the house, showing her where everything was, they ended up in the living room, equipped with a Bordeaux red velvet sofa across from a quite large flat screen TV with two big loudspeakers sitting to either side of it. One wall was occupied by a sideboard with more horse figurines on it, and also some photographs, which Sam told her, were her mother, father and her older sister Scarlet. Rhiannon also saw some photos of all four of them, and some of Sam riding a horse. Another wall had a shelf from side to side and floor to ceiling, packed with books about horses, many SciFi and fantasy novels and some books about technical stuff and programming. In a corner was a small desk, equipped with a PC, monitor and keyboard.

In the back of the living room, a large window and glass door were looking at a terrace and a small garden.

When they were done with the tour, Sam said "I'm starving. I'd planed to fetch something from the take-away, but finding you, made me totally forget that. But it's still sunny out there, want to dine with me on the terrace? I know, persocoms don't eat, but being recharged by the sun and me eating, is somehow like dining together, and we could come to know each other better."

Seeing Rhiannon beaming at this suggestion, they were off to the kitchen, where Sam prepared some slices of bread with only vegetables, and commented the questioning look from Rhiannon with "I'm vegetarian." And when Rhiannon helped her carrying her meal and a bottle of wine to the terrace, they sat down at the small round table on the terrace, and whilst Sam dig into her meal, Rhiannon poured her a glass of wine. Both were silent for some minutes, as Sam emptied her plate, and Rhiannon was admiring the garden.

Rhiannon was the first to break the silence "You're living alone here?"

"Yes. I was with someone, but we broke up about a year ago, or better, I broke up with... her" Sam answered a little hesitantly, looking into Rhiannon's eyes, a little nervously awaiting her reaction. But Rhiannon only answered "I'm sorry to hear that." nothing than genuine sympathy in her voice.

"Nothing to be too sorry about, I'm not to fond of people betraying me. And coming home early, to find the one you love and trust in the arms of someone else ruined the relationship somehow."

Seeing a hint of hurt on Samantha's face, made Rhiannon change the subject "And what are you doing for a living?"

"I'm programming websites for small or medium business firms, or debugging controlling software for CNC machines. Has the great advantage, that I can do most of my work from home."

See sun was now starting to sink and a cold wind was coming up. So Sam grabbed the dishes and Rhiannon help her to carry the remnants of the dinner into the kitchen.

"As much as I like horses, I don't want to smell like one the whole day, so I hope you don't mind me taking a short shower and get dressed in something more comfortable?" asked Sam, when they were done with putting away the dishes.

Rhiannon shook her head, but than took a sniff at the sleeve of her own blouse and making a face "And I don't like to smell like a pawnshop. I think, I'm smelling like something that was to long in the attic."

"I didn't want to say it first, but I think you're right. So let me put out some clothes for you, with you being about one or two inches taller than me, I think, some of mine should fit you good enough in the meantime. And we could go shopping tomorrow, to find something to change for you." Sam's last sentence elicit a bright smile and a cheer from Rhiannon, but after some seconds, her smile disappeared, as she said "But I don't have any money, and you already spend so much when you payed for me and than at the attorney's office..." her words were cut of, when Sam gently put her index finger on Rhiannon's lips "Shh, Shh, we'll find a solution to all this later."

When Sam removed her finger from Rhiannon's lips, both woman were standing still looking into each others eyes, than Sam's cheeks starting to blush somewhat when she said "If you're so worried about my financial status, why not starting with saving water and take the shower together? Oh, I didn't even know if you can take a shower?"

Now also blushing, Rhiannon stuttered "I... I'm waterproof for everyday life. And showering... together... is surely more environmentally friendly."

Sam went to her bedroom, to get her own nightgown from her bed and one for Rhiannon from her dresser. And while she was at it, she got rid of her riding pants and put it back in her wardrobe.

"Is it okay for you to use normal shampoo and shower gel?" Sam asked, when she came back from her bedroom, one nightgown draped over her left forearm, and handing the new one to Rhiannon, who took it and answered "It's okay."

When they were in the bathroom, Rhiannon put all her clothes into the laundry hamper, as they all have that attic like odor to them. Sam, who was a little quicker with undressing, as she already got rid of her pants, was busy adjusting the water temperature in the shower, and didn't noticed that Rhiannon had fixated her gaze on her.

But Rhiannon took in the beauty of Sam's body for only one second, than her eyes were crossed by white streaks, as her CPU starts to work overtime and a train of thoughts racing through her mind.

'What's wrong with me? I know that there are people being attracted to the same sex, but I am a persocom, we are programmed with a standard human behavior. Was it the thing, that Mr. Parker nearly did to me, or shouldn't I have tampered with my disc, just to be able to keep my memory. If it wasn't for Sam saving me, the shop owner would have dismantled me in the next days.'

'But she was so friendly towards me, and some of her words and actions were just a bit to intimate for a normal friendship. But how can I judge this, I haven't any experience with this kind of relationship, and to be honest to myself, I don't have any experience with relationships at all.'

'I never had a deeper urge, to make someone happy. But what, if I'm acting upon this urges and she rejects me. Just to ask something like this, might make her think I'm irreversibly damaged, and she kicks me out.'

Her racing thoughts were interrupted, when she could hear someone calling her name, and then her body was shaken.

Rhiannon needed a second, to slow down her data processing, so her senses were able to perceive her surroundings again, her eyes returning to normal, looking into Sam's very worried face and feeling her hands had grip her shoulders to shake her.

"I'm... okay Sam. It's normal for us, to be like this at times, when we were processing to much data at once, and I had to thing deeply about... something. I'm very sorry I made you worry."

Not saying a word or giving a though about both being naked, Sam pulled Rhiannon close, embracing her so tightly, that it was nearly painful, even for a persocom, but she just grabbed Sam in a hug just as firm, which elicits a small gasp from Sam, but she didn't pull away. Both woman leaning their heads against each others shoulder and Sam breathed into Rhiannon's ear "You're body feels so hot."

"It's like this, when a persocom's CPU is racing at top speed, to sort out her thoughts. And your body feels so hot too, and I can hear your heart racing" Rhiannon whispered back.

"It's like this, when a human is worried so much about someone, she truly cares about." Sam whispered back, losing her grip just as much to bow her head back to be able to look into Rhiannon's face, that now seems to have a glow to it and both woman realizing their desire and were closing their eyes, as their lips met. Gently at first, but soon getting more passionately and their tongues invading each others mouth, dancing around, pulling back, just to probe again with more vigor.

When they ended the kiss after some minutes, Rhiannon opened her eyes again, looking at Sam's face full of bliss and stated "It's not really saving any water, when the shower runs and we not using it."

Sam now opening her eyes too, replying "There will be much more water going down the drain, before we finished with what I have in mind" her lips curled in a mischievous smile, as she disentangles herself from Rhiannon, to grab her hand and pull her into the shower, sliding the door shut behind her. The glass soon became foggy, only revealing the shadow of two bodies, pressing against each other and moving in delight and voices calling out each others name in ecstasy...

When Sam turned the shower off after nearly one hour, she slides the door open, and left the cabin, more tottering than walking, with Rhiannon not much of a help to steady her, as the persocom woman had a feeling as if her giros were maladjusted, grabbing the side of the shower to keep herself upright. They were both toweling down each other, which would have lead to more adult activities, were they both not totally spend.

Neither of them felt as if there was something to say, just looking into each others eyes now and again, was enough of a conversation for them.

Back in the bedroom, both dressed in their nightgowns, the were slipping under the blanket and turned to face each other, when Sam broke the silence "What are you doing, when you sleep?"

"I'm not sleeping like humans do, I enter a kind of sleep mode, only to be awakened by my internal alarm clock, some dangerous situations, like fire for example, or if someone touches me, or is calling my name. But beside that, my data processing comes to a hold. It's just so to minimize my power consumption."

"So you're not dreaming?"

Rhiannon pondering on that question for some seconds "No, I don't even know if I'm able to do that."

Sam pressing the subject "But if you don't enter sleep mode, just trying to slow your processing down, rethinking the events of the day, or maybe things long ago, because that is what humans do before we fall asleep and then we start to dream, although, sometimes our dreams doesn't make any sense, or they can be frightful, but that's not the norm. On the other hand, some of our dreams can be delightful... even very sensual. Maybe you should give it a try darling." with that, she kisses Rhiannon gently on her lips and then dropped her head onto the pillow smiling. Closing her eyes Sam murmuring "Sleep tight dear, and have a nice dream..." her smile deepening, as Rhiannon gently grabbed her hand under the blanket, whispering "You too... love."

Rhiannon was lying perfectly still, not to disturb Sam's sleep, and tried to slow her mind down. Than she reaches out to her very first conscious moment, when she was activated at the Parker's house...

She opened her eyes and was greeted by the sight of a man and a woman and three girls. The oldest kid was standing still, looking at her with curiosity sparkling in her eyes, but the two younger kids were not able to contain there excitement as the were bouncing up and down, cheering all the time "Our new friend is here!", till the woman admonished them to be silent, as their father has to set up the persocom.

Her first question after being activated, and the man had read the registration number to her, was to asked , how he like to name her. He looked a bit lost, till his wife whispered something into his ear, and he said, he want her to be named "Rhiannon". She didn't had to much time to express how happy she was about her name, as the smaller girls were grabbing her hands and pulling her around the house, showing her their rooms and the garden in the backyard...

Rhiannon skipped ahead in the timescale of her memories, just lingering for some seconds at moments, she always liked the most. Like playing with the kids, being at the riding stable with them, or doing some gardening. She always liked animals, especial horses, but she never had the chance to ride one. Although the kids sometimes begging for her to ride with them, their father always denied it to her, saying, she's just a persocom, there's no need to pay an extra fee, to let her have 'fun', she's just there to do chores and to look after them. Rhiannon always turned her head away at this times, so no one could see the hurt and sadness on her face.

Than she skipped some of the more unpleasant memory, like what Mr. Parker tried to do to her, although she pleaded him to stop. It was just for his wife coming back early, because on of the girls got very sick at school, that he didn't...

No, she will not think about this, not after the wonderful events this evening, which brought her back to the moment, when she and Sam entered the house and she was shown around, looking at the pictures of Sam on a horseback, she tries to envision Sam riding a horse, using the movement she recorded, when she was at the riding stable with the girls, when suddenly...

She could feel something moving beneath her and she feels the wind brushing her face, letting her dark curled hair flying behind her like a cape, revealing her blue coned ears. And when she looked down, she was sitting on a gray mare, galloping with huge leaps toward a waterfall in the distance, and turning her head to the right, she could see Samantha riding a black slender mare, her short blond hair ruffled by the wind, and she was turning her head too, smiling at her, when the horses slowed down to a trot and then halted. Without even question the situation, she got down from her horse as Sam did the same. Rhiannon wasn't even surprised, that they were both naked now, as Sam grabbed her hand pulling Rhiannon with her. They were entering a pool, which was fed by the waterfall.

They crossed the pool, coming to a hold right under the falls. Although she knew, the water should be cold, it felt lukewarm and instead of hammering down from such a great height, it was gently caressing her body, just as Sam's hands were doing. She reciprocated the affection Sam was showing and tried to touch her lover everywhere. She wasn't able to hold out to long, as she could feel the tension building, and when Sam pressed her lips to her's, pushing her tongue into her mouth, using two finders to pleasure her insides and her thumb find her most sensitive spot, she was send over the edge, feeling her legs buckle and she would surely have fallen to the ground when it wasn't for Sam holding her tight. She could feel how she started to twitch, and then...

She was awakened by a light nudge on her shoulder and Sam's sleepy voice asking "Are you alright? You were moaning in your sleep, pressed my hand and I could feel your whole body shiver."

When she opened her eyes, her enhanced vision could make out Sam's face in the darkness with a light sign of worry to it, so she was fast to say "I'm okay, but... your... advice... about letting my mind wander..."

"So you had something like a dream Rhiannon? Was it a pleasant one?"

Feeling her face start to burn, Rhiannon, instead of an answer, took Sam's hand she was still holding and pulled it down to her crotch, pressing it against her nightgown.

"Definitely a veeeery pleasant one." Sam was cooing. And than she add in a teasing voice "But I hope, you will save some of the fun to share it with me!? Maybe before we get up..."

"I would love to, I already shared it with you in my dream Sam..."

* * *

"Sam... Saaam... Samantha..." "Samantha Delaney!" Cynthia's voice became so loud, it made some of the other guests turn their head, so see what the fuss was about. But it had at least the effect to wake Sam from her daydream.

"Sorry, must have been totally spaced out." Sam was mumbling, still not quite back from her memories.

"You can say that again! You were just sitting there for some minutes, only blinking every once in a while."

"Sorry again, but it's now over a week that she disappeared, and not the slightest hint what happened to her. By now, she could be anywhere, even..." Sam couldn't think that to the end.

"No need to apologize, I can image how you feel, I know she means the world to you." Cynthia squeezing Sam's hand lightly. "It's more that I'm so sorry, I can't be of more help to you, but you know that my computer skills are basic at best. So writing programs to search the net for her can only be done by you. All I can do..."

"Is giving me support in the hardest time, I ever been through in my whole life. I can not express in words, what that means to me. And this break was just what I needed... Why haven't I thought about this before, but the bandwidth would be to much for my home account, but if I only extract the audio part first, or the ticker text..." Sam interrupted her friend.

"You lost me after your third sentence. Haven't though about what?" Cynthia stopped the rambling of Sam.

"I have set up a search program, that scans the net for pictures of persocoms, who have the same appearance as Rhiannon, but all I found so far were false positives. And a program, to search for any news about accidents, where persocoms were involved. Thank God, I hadn't any matches on that search. But I only searched our local and the nationwide news. But there are thousands of local news stations all over the US, most of them now have video streams on the net, but it wouldn't be possible for even my 1 Gb account, to scan them all, so I'll extract only the audio stream and the ticker text, which is just a few percent of the total data rate..." Sam tried to explain, what she had in mind.

"Okay. I think, I understand. So what are you waiting for? Get home and get going! I'll pay the bill." Cynthia hadn't finished her sentence, when Sam gave her big hug and was off to her car to drive home, new hope filling her heart.

When, after some hours, she had finished typing in the program, she started it. It ran flawlessly on first try, and was scanning the net for any available news cast all over the US. She had set the time range to start the scan to the day Rhiannon hasn't returned from her shopping tour in the center of Phoenix. When the program had finished the list and started the scanning, after some minutes, it printed an average scanning rate of short under a minute news feed per second, so it would take some hours, maybe one or two days, to hopefully find something about Rhiannon's whereabouts.

Exhausted from to many sleepless nights in the last days, she had programmed an alarm sound that would wake the dead, when something that would match the search criteria would be found by the scan. As her PC was located in the living room, she was only rushing to the bedroom, to grab a pillow from her bed and returned to the living room, to take a nap on the sofa.

It wasn't by accident, that she took Rhiannon's pillow, as there still was a hint of her scent to it. When she laid her head on the pillow, she inhaled deeply, than a deep sigh escaped her mouth and some tears were rolling down her cheeks, as she drifted of to a restless sleep.


End file.
